Matthias Van Rossum
Biographic Data
| ID | 325115 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthias Van Rossum |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthias |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Rossum |
| SIGNATURE | VAN ROSSUM M |
| AFFILIATIONS | International Institute of Social History |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9567-5654 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 89 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 46 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Revisiting violence, slavery and domestic authority in the Dutch empire
This article examines domestic authority as a central legal and social mechanism underpinning colonial governance in the Dutch East India Company empire. Existing historiography often characterizes domestic dependency as a condition in which enslaved individuals, deprived of property rights and legal autonomy, were subjected to private jurisdiction in the domestic sphere and subjected to the broad discretion of household heads. This study correct…
The Globality of the Local
Volume 1 of The Cambridge History of Global Migrations documents the lives and experiences of everyday people through the lens of human movement and mobility from 1400 to 1800. Focusing on the most important typologies of preindustrial global migrations, this volume reveals how these movements transformed global paths of mobility, the impacts of which we still see in societies today. Case studies include those that arose from the demand for free,…
Exploring Slave Trade in Asia
Since its conception in 2016, the Exploring Slave Trade in Asia (ESTA) project has been working towards solidifying research on the slave trade in the Indian Ocean region and Maritime Asia world by means of a collaborative database. This article briefly discusses ESTA’s roots and goals, showcasing the first results that its database yielded. We discuss and evaluate the database’s structure and content up until this point, as well as its ramificat…
Flexible Country in the Making
Internationally, the 1980s marked a shift in economic policy. In the Netherlands, the supposedly moderate neoliberal turn and the first round of flexibilization characterized the decade. Nowadays, labour market flexibility is exceptionally high in the Netherlands compared to neighbouring countries. This article examines how the trade union movement in the 1980s responded to increasing flexibilization, which strategy was used, and how this contri…
Discussiedossier Kolonialisme en racisme
In veel opzichten markeren de publicatie en bespreking van de essaybundel Kolonialisme en racisme. Een postkoloniale kroniek een langverdiende vorm van historiografische genoegdoening. Zijn onderzoek naar arbeid, precariteit, dwang en kapitalisme heeft Jan Breman tot een beroemdheid gemaakt in grote delen van de wereld. Terwijl zijn werk in met name India, Indonesië en andere voormalige gekoloniseerde landen grote bekendheid geniet, is het in Ned…
New Perspectives on Early Modern Dutch Atlantic Slavery and Slave Trade
This Special Issue explores new routes in the economic historical research on the Dutch Atlantic history of slavery and slave trade. Each of its contributions tackles important blind spots that have continued to haunt Dutch economic history despite the recent energetic revival of research and debates on the economic impact of Dutch Atlantic slavery. Together, the articles of this Special Issue challenge our perspectives, questions and methods
Transforming historical research practices – a digital infrastructure for the VOC archives (GLOBALISE)
The GLOBALISE project aims to unlock c. 5 million pages from the archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) for in-depth research. Funded by the Dutch Research Council 1 , GLOBALISE is a collaboration of the Huygens Institute, the International Institute of Social History and the Digital Infrastructure department of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Humanities Cluster; the Computational Linguistics & Text Mining Lab of the Vr…
Slavery and Bondage in Asia, 1550–1850
The study of slavery and coerced labour is increasingly conducted from a global perspective, and yet a dual Eurocentric bias remains: slavery primarily brings to mind the images of Atlantic chattel slavery, and most studies continue to be based – either outright or implicitly – on a model of northern European wage labour. This book constitutes an attempt to re-centre that story to Asia. With studies spanning the western Indian Ocean and the stepp…
Enslaveability, Slavery and Global Micro Histories
This article explores the questions how enslavement and enslaveability were shaped in early modern southwest India and the Dutch East India Company (VOC) Empire. Through the example of the slave woman Cali in the 1740s, the article demonstrates how a careful micro-study based on legal court records can shed light on the ways in which individuals entered, experienced, and left slavery in eighteenth-century South India, and also suggests how differ…
Globalization and Coerced Labour in Early Modern Asia and Africa
Die frühneuzeitliche Globalisierung ging mit der gleichzeitigen Ausbreitung von Systemen der Ausbeutung von Zwangsarbeit einher. Dieser Artikel versucht, unser Verständnis der Auswirkungender frühen Globalisierung zu vertiefen, indem er vergleichend die Auswirkungen der steigenden globalen Nachfrage nach (Zwangs-)Arbeit auf Systeme der Unfreiheit und Sklaverei, insbesondere in Westafrika und Südasien, untersucht. Wir argumentieren, dass die sich …
Not so Consensual after All
the American broadcaster PBS aired the first episode of the documentary series Free to Choose by Rose and Milton Fried man.At that time, politicians and policymakers were, in fact, forced to choose.Western economies were mired in the most serious econom ic crisis since the 1930s.Keynesians desperately searched for a way to combat the crisis within the constraints of the existing economic order.Neoliberal economists, such as the Friedmans, challen…
Flexland in wording
No English abstract available
Introduction
(2021). Introduction: the impact of slavery on Europe – reopening a debate. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 42, Europe and Slavery: Revisiting the Impact of Slave-Based Activities on European Economies, 1500-1850. Guest Editors: Tamira Combrink & Matthias van Rossum, pp. 1-14
Towards a global perspective on early modern slave trade
Despite the growth of studies on slavery and slave trade outside the Atlantic world in recent years, especially in the early modern Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago worlds, our knowledge of regional price levels and their development remains surprisingly underdeveloped. This article questions how the price of enslaved people developed in the multi-directional and multi-faceted Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago slave trade, how this c…
Corvée Capitalism
This article revisits our understanding of corvée labor regimes and their role and impact in the early expansion of colonialism and capitalism. Rather than remnants of feudal pasts, or in-kind taxation or revenue instruments of weak colonial powers, corvée regimes should be viewed as refined methods of colonial exploitation that provided colonial actors with more direct access to and control over the production of commercially interesting global …
Slavery and Its Transformations
This 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 slaver…
Between Markets and Chains
On a Sunday towards the end of 1746, three men's lives intersected in a schaggerije (tavern) at Pagodinho-they belonged to an enslaved man, a christian pandij and a christian mocqua. 1 The enslaved man, Cruz, had been put to work in the tavern some two months earlier by his master, the Christian mocqua, Pedro Gomez.Records indicate that Pedro may have been the owner of the tavern or was closely involved in running it, as there is mention of him v…
Testimonies of Enslavement
Drawing on the rich archives of the Court of Justice of Cochin, a main settlement of the Dutch East India Company, this book presents ten court cases that deal with themes of enslavement and ‘enslavebility’. Offering detailed insights into interrogations and testimonies, they paint a unique picture of the complex historical realities in which processes of enslavement and relations of slavery were shaped. Through these cases the reader is able to …
The Dutch East India Company and Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago Worlds, 1602–1795
Slavery and slave trade were widespread throughout the empire of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Asia. The VOC was not only a “merchant” company but also functioned as military power, government, and even agricultural producer. In these roles, the VOC was involved in the forced relocation (and forced mobilization) of people in direct and indirect ways. This entailed commodified slavery and especially slave trade, in which persons were consi…
Towards an Indian Ocean and Maritime Asia Slave Trade Database
While over the last three decades the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database (TASTD) has mobilized an astounding scholarly energy, the history of the slave trade in Asia has so far remained underdeveloped. Although numerous scholarly articles have indicated the widespread presence of slavery and the slave trade throughout maritime Asia from the early modern period well into the 19th century, estimates for the slave trade in the Indian Ocean are still…
Global Slavery, Local Bondage? Rethinking Slaveries as (Im)Mobilizing Regimes from the Case of the Dutch Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago Worlds
This article aims to contribute to rethinking the history of slavery in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian archipelago. Recent scholarship provides increasing indications that the slave trade in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian archipelago worlds might have been more extensive than previously thought. This not only challenges the dominant focus on Atlantic slavery but also urges scholars to reassess current perspectives on slavery in Southeast and So…
Slave Trade and Slavery in Asia—New Perspectives
Recent years have witnessed an expanding body of scholarship indicating the importance of slave trade and slavery in different parts of the Indian Ocean and Indonesian archipelago worlds. This work has not only challenged the dominant focus of slavery scholarship on the Atlantic context but has also encouraged scholars to reassess wider perspectives on Asian and global social histories. This special issue brings together contributions that explor…
On the Run
Despite growing attention to the history of slavery in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago worlds, the debate on the nature or characteristics of slavery in these regions has been left largely unsettled. Whereas some scholars emphasize the existence of harsh forms of hereditary slavery similar to those found in the Americas, others argue that the nature of slavery in Asia was urban, status-based, and milder than in the Atlantic world. Thi…
Being a Slave. Histories and Legacies of European Slavery in the Indian Ocean
This multidisciplinary volume brings together scholars and writers who try to come to terms with the histories and legacies of European slavery in the Indian Ocean. The volume discusses a variety of qualitative data on the experience of being a slave in order to recover ordinary lives and, crucially, to place this experience in its Asian local context. Building on the rich scholarship on the slave trade, this volume offers a unique perspective th…
A Global History of Runaways
Private slave trade in the Dutch Indian Ocean world
This article explores the local and intercontinental networks that underpinned the private trade in slaves and the transportation of the enslaved in the VOC seaborne empire during the eighteenth century. We rely on two sets of complementary VOC records, with their respective shortcomings, to reveal information about those who were involved in this trade as sellers, buyers and traded. Our focus is on the Cape of Good Hope as a node with a high dem…
Beyond Profitability
Dutch research into the slave trade and its importance to the Dutch economy has often limited itself to investigating the financial success of slave trading companies, calculating the success of slaving by its profit rates. The central argument made in this article is that gross margin is a better indicator for the importance of the slave trade to the Dutch Republic. Even if a slave trading company did not make a net profit on a voyage, such a vo…
Being a Slave. Histories and Legacies of European Slavery in the Indian Ocean
This multidisciplinary volume brings together scholars and writers who try to come to terms with the histories and legacies of European slavery in the Indian Ocean. The volume discusses a variety of qualitative data on the experience of being a slave in order to recover ordinary lives and, crucially, to place this experience in its Asian local context. Building on the rich scholarship on the slave trade, this volume offers a unique perspective th…
Slavery and Its Transformations
This 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 slaver…
Global Slavery, Local Bondage? Rethinking Slaveries as (Im)Mobilizing Regimes from the Case of the Dutch Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago Worlds
This article aims to contribute to rethinking the history of slavery in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian archipelago. Recent scholarship provides increasing indications that the slave trade in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian archipelago worlds might have been more extensive than previously thought. This not only challenges the dominant focus on Atlantic slavery but also urges scholars to reassess current perspectives on slavery in Southeast and So…
The Carceral Colony
This article studies the strategic disciplinary and productive function of the colonial penal system of the Dutch East Indies (1816–1942). Developing convict labour as the main punishment for minor public and labour offences, the Dutch colonial regime created an increasingly effective system of exploitation that weaved together colonial discipline, control, and coercion. This system was based on two major carceral connections : firstly, the inter…
On the Run
Despite growing attention to the history of slavery in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago worlds, the debate on the nature or characteristics of slavery in these regions has been left largely unsettled. Whereas some scholars emphasize the existence of harsh forms of hereditary slavery similar to those found in the Americas, others argue that the nature of slavery in Asia was urban, status-based, and milder than in the Atlantic world. Thi…
Amok!”
I n September 1782, a violent and partly successful mutiny of Balinese slaves shocked the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This article will reconstruct the history of the mutiny of the Mercuur , tracing its significance in the context of slavery, labour, war, and the series of “Asian mutinies” that occurred in the 1780s. The revolt of the Balinese sheds light on the development of amok as a tradition of resistance. The purpose of calling amok can…
A “Moorish World” within the Company
Let us begin with a drawing, depicting the river mouth of Batavia. We see a lively scene. Europeans and Asians are fishing, peddling, rowing, riding, walking, and sitting along the waterway. A small prauw on the left appears to be manned by Javanese and Chinese. Behind the Waterkasteel , on the right, large numbers of oceangoing vessels are anchored before Batavia. In the middle of the drawing, we see three men on the path along the waterway, the…
De Intra-Aziatische Vaart
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
Towards a global perspective on early modern slave trade
Despite the growth of studies on slavery and slave trade outside the Atlantic world in recent years, especially in the early modern Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago worlds, our knowledge of regional price levels and their development remains surprisingly underdeveloped. This article questions how the price of enslaved people developed in the multi-directional and multi-faceted Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago slave trade, how this c…
Corvée Capitalism
This article revisits our understanding of corvée labor regimes and their role and impact in the early expansion of colonialism and capitalism. Rather than remnants of feudal pasts, or in-kind taxation or revenue instruments of weak colonial powers, corvée regimes should be viewed as refined methods of colonial exploitation that provided colonial actors with more direct access to and control over the production of commercially interesting global …
Slave Trade and Slavery in Asia—New Perspectives
Recent years have witnessed an expanding body of scholarship indicating the importance of slave trade and slavery in different parts of the Indian Ocean and Indonesian archipelago worlds. This work has not only challenged the dominant focus of slavery scholarship on the Atlantic context but has also encouraged scholars to reassess wider perspectives on Asian and global social histories. This special issue brings together contributions that explor…
Entrepreneurs at sea
Historians of globalization have considered how the early phases of globalization brought about changes in localized legal systems. But rather than pursuing the conventional approach of identifying ways in which the law developed to function on a more global scale, we adopt a localized perspective to examine how a landscape of different legal systems offered myriad opportunities in which the entrepreneurial activities of many actors could flouris…
Slavery and Bondage in Asia, 1550–1850
The study of slavery and coerced labour is increasingly conducted from a global perspective, and yet a dual Eurocentric bias remains: slavery primarily brings to mind the images of Atlantic chattel slavery, and most studies continue to be based – either outright or implicitly – on a model of northern European wage labour. This book constitutes an attempt to re-centre that story to Asia. With studies spanning the western Indian Ocean and the stepp…
Labouring Transformations of Amphibious Monsters
Early modern globalization depended on labour-intensive production and transport of global commodities. Throughout the Dutch Empire of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries labour was mobilized through a variety of different labour relations (especially casual, contract, slave, and corvée labour). The mobilization of these workers often entailed movements over short, but more often long, distances. Port cities were crucial nodal points connect…
Enslaveability, Slavery and Global Micro Histories
This article explores the questions how enslavement and enslaveability were shaped in early modern southwest India and the Dutch East India Company (VOC) Empire. Through the example of the slave woman Cali in the 1740s, the article demonstrates how a careful micro-study based on legal court records can shed light on the ways in which individuals entered, experienced, and left slavery in eighteenth-century South India, and also suggests how differ…
Not so Consensual after All
the American broadcaster PBS aired the first episode of the documentary series Free to Choose by Rose and Milton Fried man.At that time, politicians and policymakers were, in fact, forced to choose.Western economies were mired in the most serious econom ic crisis since the 1930s.Keynesians desperately searched for a way to combat the crisis within the constraints of the existing economic order.Neoliberal economists, such as the Friedmans, challen…
Introduction
(2021). Introduction: the impact of slavery on Europe – reopening a debate. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 42, Europe and Slavery: Revisiting the Impact of Slave-Based Activities on European Economies, 1500-1850. Guest Editors: Tamira Combrink & Matthias van Rossum, pp. 1-14
Towards an Indian Ocean and Maritime Asia Slave Trade Database
While over the last three decades the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database (TASTD) has mobilized an astounding scholarly energy, the history of the slave trade in Asia has so far remained underdeveloped. Although numerous scholarly articles have indicated the widespread presence of slavery and the slave trade throughout maritime Asia from the early modern period well into the 19th century, estimates for the slave trade in the Indian Ocean are still…
Smokkelloon en zilverstromen. Illegale export van edelmetaal via de VOC
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
A profitable debate
Our gross margins approach is a blunt tool, which has – far more than we expected – improved scholarly understanding of the direct and indirect economic impact of the slave trade.1 The authors of t
Wat is winst? De economische impact van de Nederlandse trans-Atlantische slavenhande
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
De Intra-Aziatische Vaart
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
Een marginale bijdrage? Repliek
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
Wat is winst? De economische impact van de Nederlandse trans-Atlantische slavenhande
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
A “Moorish World” within the Company
Let us begin with a drawing, depicting the river mouth of Batavia. We see a lively scene. Europeans and Asians are fishing, peddling, rowing, riding, walking, and sitting along the waterway. A small prauw on the left appears to be manned by Javanese and Chinese. Behind the Waterkasteel , on the right, large numbers of oceangoing vessels are anchored before Batavia. In the middle of the drawing, we see three men on the path along the waterway, the…
Amok!”
I n September 1782, a violent and partly successful mutiny of Balinese slaves shocked the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This article will reconstruct the history of the mutiny of the Mercuur , tracing its significance in the context of slavery, labour, war, and the series of “Asian mutinies” that occurred in the 1780s. The revolt of the Balinese sheds light on the development of amok as a tradition of resistance. The purpose of calling amok can…
Lost in translation? Maritime identity and identification in Asia under the VOC
The history of non-European sailors, especially the history of lascar sailors, has gained increasing scholarly attention in recent years. This article argues that the category of the ‘lascar’ cannot simply be taken for granted as a historically stable category. Examining the early modern categorisation and identification process of Asian, Eurasian and European sailors under the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC), it compares the categorisati…
Beyond Profitability
Dutch research into the slave trade and its importance to the Dutch economy has often limited itself to investigating the financial success of slave trading companies, calculating the success of slaving by its profit rates. The central argument made in this article is that gross margin is a better indicator for the importance of the slave trade to the Dutch Republic. Even if a slave trading company did not make a net profit on a voyage, such a vo…
Claiming their Rights? Indian Sailors under the Dutch East India Company
Late April 1747, Batavia. On a plank covered with a mat made of leaves, the dead body of an Indian sailor was laid down by his fellow workers. The sailor, known by the name of Jantje, was originally from Bengal and had worked as a rower in the service of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie: VOC) on the waterfront of Batavia. Mourning his death, the Indian sailors publicly and purposely ‘displayed’ Jantje’s dead body ‘t…
Claiming their Rights? Indian Sailors under the Dutch East India Company
Vervloekte goudzugt'. De VOC, slavenhandel en slavernij in Azië
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
The ‘Yellow Danger’? Global forces and global fears in the North Sea and beyond (1600–1950)
Since direct shipping routes between Europe and Asia opened up at the end of the 15th century, the growing intercontinental and regional shipping connections resulted in increasing entanglements between European and Asian maritime labour markets. This article analyses the long term development of the connections between European and Asian maritime labour markets and its impact on socio-cultural (and labour) relations through three elements: first…
Coolie Transformations - Uncovering the Changing Meaning and Labour Relations of Coolie Labour in the Dutch Empire (18th and 19th Century)
Smokkelloon en zilverstromen. Illegale export van edelmetaal via de VOC
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
De Nederlandse smokkelhandel, 1600-1800
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
Entrepreneurs at sea
Historians of globalization have considered how the early phases of globalization brought about changes in localized legal systems. But rather than pursuing the conventional approach of identifying ways in which the law developed to function on a more global scale, we adopt a localized perspective to examine how a landscape of different legal systems offered myriad opportunities in which the entrepreneurial activities of many actors could flouris…
A profitable debate
Our gross margins approach is a blunt tool, which has – far more than we expected – improved scholarly understanding of the direct and indirect economic impact of the slave trade.1 The authors of t
Private slave trade in the Dutch Indian Ocean world
This article explores the local and intercontinental networks that underpinned the private trade in slaves and the transportation of the enslaved in the VOC seaborne empire during the eighteenth century. We rely on two sets of complementary VOC records, with their respective shortcomings, to reveal information about those who were involved in this trade as sellers, buyers and traded. Our focus is on the Cape of Good Hope as a node with a high dem…
The Dutch East India Company in Asia, 1595–1811
One morning in the middle of December 1728, around eight o' clock, the convict Pieter Ewouts from Middelburg was ordered 'with several other convicts' to walk from the convict barracks in the artisans' quarter of the Dutch colonial city of Batavia to the artillery. The convicts walked through the city chained in pairs. Pieter was also in chains, which 'linked him to another European' . Only two months earlier, he had been a young sailor on the Du…
The Carceral Colony
This article studies the strategic disciplinary and productive function of the colonial penal system of the Dutch East Indies (1816–1942). Developing convict labour as the main punishment for minor public and labour offences, the Dutch colonial regime created an increasingly effective system of exploitation that weaved together colonial discipline, control, and coercion. This system was based on two major carceral connections : firstly, the inter…
A Global History of Runaways
Global History of Runaways
Running Together or Running Apart? Diversity, Desertion, and Resistance in the Dutch East India Company Empire, 1650–1800
Building maritime empire
This article maps the overseas infrastructure of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) for ship maintenance and shipbuilding. Reversing the perspective on the VOC, emphasizing the centrality of the ‘overseas’ or Asian activities, it studies how the VOC set up an infrastructure for shipbuilding, ship maintenance, and the necessary supporting industries in Asia. Historians have primarily examined the Company as a ‘merchant’, but the organization of th…
Labouring Transformations of Amphibious Monsters
Early modern globalization depended on labour-intensive production and transport of global commodities. Throughout the Dutch Empire of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries labour was mobilized through a variety of different labour relations (especially casual, contract, slave, and corvée labour). The mobilization of these workers often entailed movements over short, but more often long, distances. Port cities were crucial nodal points connect…
Between Markets and Chains
On a Sunday towards the end of 1746, three men's lives intersected in a schaggerije (tavern) at Pagodinho-they belonged to an enslaved man, a christian pandij and a christian mocqua. 1 The enslaved man, Cruz, had been put to work in the tavern some two months earlier by his master, the Christian mocqua, Pedro Gomez.Records indicate that Pedro may have been the owner of the tavern or was closely involved in running it, as there is mention of him v…
Political science (35 works) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade (32 works) · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories (28 works) · History (28 works) · History (20 works) · Economics (19 works) · Asian Studies and History (17 works) · Economy (17 works) · Law (17 works) · Geography (15 works)