A traffic repugnant to humanity: Children, the Mascarene slave trade and British abolitionism
2006; Frank Cass & Co.; Volume: 27; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01440390600765573
ISSN1743-9523
Autores Tópico(s)Caribbean history, culture, and politics
ResumoAbstract Research on the Mascarene slave trade affords an opportunity to examine the exportation of enslaved children to the southwestern Indian Ocean from India, Southeast Asia, and eastern Africa from 1770 to circa 1830. Growing concern among British East India Company officials during the 1780s and 1790s about stemming the slave trade from India to Mauritius and Réunion, and ending the exportation of children in particular, raises questions about the extent to which the trafficking in slave children, coupled with the emergence of new concepts of childhood in late eighteenth-century Europe, influenced the development of the aboltitionist movement in Britain. Acknowledgements Revision of this paper was made possible in part by an American Council of Learned Societies/Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship and facilitated by support from the Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund. My thanks to Thomas A. Krainz for his comments and suggestions. Notes Abbreviations ADM – Admiralty records, British National Archives (hereafter BNA – formerly the Public Record Office), Kew; CAOM: Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence; CO – Colonial Office records, BNA; HCA – High Court of the Admiralty records, BNA; MNA – Mauritius National Archives; OIOC – Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library, London; PP – British Parliament Sessional Papers; T – Treasury records, BNA. [1] Gerbeau, "The Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean," 184–207. [2] Unless otherwise noted, the terms "child", "boy", "girl" and "youth" refer to persons under the age of fifteen. [3] Recent exceptions include: Inniss, "Santé des enfants esclaves"; Stella, "La traite d'enfants"; Ève, "L'enfant esclave". [4] See the reports of the Protectors of Slaves for summaries of the complaints slaves filed against their masters in various British colonies between 1829 and 1835. [5] Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 65–66. [6] Manning, Slavery and African Life, 99; Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 143. [7] Allen, "The Mascarene Slave-Trade," 38, 45. [8] Desport, De la servitude à la liberté, 8, 14; Carter, "Indian Slaves in Mauritius," 243. [9] Allen, "New Perspectives on the Mascarene Slave Trade." [10] MNA: OB 23/102bis – 18 décembre 1784. [11] MNA: OB 28/456 – 3 août 1790. [12] CO 415/6/A.124 – Returns of the number of Births and Deaths of Slaves in the [district/town] from the Year 1810 to 1826, inclusive. [13] Kuczynski, Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire, 852. [14] Allen, "The Mascarene Slave Trade," 37–41. [15] Toussaint, La route des îles, 451, 454. [16] See Allen, "Licentious and Unbridled Proceedings"; Gerbeau, "L'Océan Indien n'est pas l'Atlantique". [17] HCA 30/794. [18] CO 167/43 – Returns of Prize Slaves condemned by the Court of Vice Admiralty in the Colony, 1 June 1816 to 28 January 1818; CO 167/71 – Detailed Statement of Blacks Seized Since the last Return dated 31st December 1820. [19] T 71/1520 – Extracts from the Returns furnished by Slave Proprietors at the Census of 1826 … illegally imported into the Colony 1 May ]1835]. [20] See Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa; Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar. [21] See Larson, History and Memory in the Age of Enslavement; Campbell, An Economic History of Imperial Madagascar. [22] McPherson, The Indian Ocean; Hall, Empires of the Monsoon; Barendse, The Arabian Seas; Kearney, The Indian Ocean in World History. [23] For example, Gupta, Malabar in Asian Trade; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce; Sinha, The Politics of Trade. [24] The ethnonym "Malay" referred not only to persons from Malaya and the Indonesian archipelago, but also occasionally to those arriving from India and even the Maldives (Gerbeau, "Des minorités mal-connues," 160–242). [25] Filliot, La traite des esclaves vers les Mascareignes, especially 175–81; Carter, "Indian Slaves in Mauritius," 233–38, and idem, "A Servile Minority in a Sugar Island." [26] Allen, "Carrying Away the Unfortunate." [27] See Reid, "Introduction: Slavery and Bondage in Southeast Asian History," especially 27–33; Kraan, "Bali: Slavery and Slave Trade," in Reid, Slavery, Bondage, especially 329–37. [28] Vink, "'The World's Oldest Trade.'" [29] Basu, "Notes on Slave Trade and Slavery." [30] OIOC: Mss. Eur. Mack General 55, p. 46. [31] OIOC: E/4/996, p. 647. [32] Worden, Slavery, 48. [33] PP 1828 XXIV [125], p. 19. [34] OIOC: P/241/37, p. 627. [35] OIOC: P/241/37, p. 943. [36] Desport, De la servitude à la liberté, 14. [37] Napal, Les indiens à l'Ile de France, 9. [38] Carter, "Indian Slaves," 243. [39] Allen, "The Mascarene Slave Trade," 41. [40] Sen, The French in India, passim. [41] Toussaint, Le mirage des îles, 20ff.; Campbell, "The Structure of Trade in Madagascar," 139, 143; Ly-Tio-Fane, "The Americans and the Franchise of Port Louis"; Allen, "The Mascarene Slave Trade," 40. [42] PP 1828 XXIV [125], p. 3. [43] Basu, "Notes on Slave Trade," 26; Arasaratnam, "Slave Trade," 197–98; Vink, "'The World's Oldest Trade,'" 140–43. [44] OIOC: P/165/53, pp. 444–51. [45] OIOC: P/E/5, p. 399. [46] OIOC: P/50/60 – M. Day to William Cowper, 2 March 1785, following L.R. No. 311, Wm Cowper to the Hon. John Macpherson, 14 March 1785, in Fort William proceedings of 9 September 1785. [47] OIOC: P/241/17, p. 640. [48] OIOC: P/241/25, pp. 1706–07. [49] OIOC: F/4/578/14078, pp. 21–23. [50] OIOC: P/51/12, p. 244; P/51/13, p. 835; P/51/20, pp. 93–94. [51] OIOC: P/51/15, p. 511. [52] OIOC: P/241/24, pp. 1375–76. [53] OIOC: P/241/37, pp. 884–88. [54] Allen, "The Mascarene Slave Trade," 41. [55] MNA: OA 44/1 – Domaine du Roi, Compte de recettes, 1772, No. 126 – entry dated 3 juillet. [56] OIOC: P/3/46, pp. 15–18, 20–21. Another source reports that Horrebow loaded 150 "unhappy children" (PP 1828 XXIV [125], p. 14). [57] OIOC: P/241/31, p. 562. [58] OIOC: P/241/37, pp. 511–12. [59] OIOC: P/253/11, p. 770. [60] OIOC: P/241/38, p. 1235. [61] OIOC: P/E/5, pp. 398–99. [62] OIOC: E/4/1009, pp. 246–48. [63] Joseph, "Slave Labour of Malabar," 49. [64] OIOC: F/4/1128/30151 – Contraband trade carried on through Mahé. [65] OIOC: P/334/69, pp. 1001–02. [66] Allen, "Licentious and Unbridled Proceedings," 111–13. [67] Gerbeau, "Des minorités mal connues," passim. [68] CO 415/7/A.164 – Memorandum for Captain Ackland from Mr. Finniss [after 13 September 1826]. Only 24 of the boys reached Réunion alive. [69] OIOC: F/4/345/7981, p. 23; F/4/659/18295, pp. 55, 58–59. [70] CO 415/1, p. 15. [71] Allen, "The Mascarene Slave Trade," 41. [72] OIOC: P/49/46, pp. 1484–85. [73] OIOC: P/3/46, p. 488. [74] OIOC: P/241/17, pp. 644–45. In 1818, one pagoda equaled Rs. 3½ (Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, 653). [75] OIOC: P/E/5, p. 471. [76] OIOC: P/253/11, p. 928. [77] OIOC: P/241/27, p. 3009. [78] OIOC: P/241/27, p. 3323. [79] See Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture; idem, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution; Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery. [80] See Cunningham, Children and Childhood in Western Society; Heywood, A History of Childhood. [81] Cunningham, Children and Childhood, 61. [82] Oldfield, Popular Politics and British Anti-Slavery, 142–48. [83] OIOC: Mss. Eur. E93, pp. 57–58. My thanks to Tillman Nechtman for bringing this manuscript to my attention. [84] Osborn, "India and the East India Company." [85] OIOC: E/4/1011, p. 412. [86] Kopf, British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance, 239; Spear, A History of India, vol. 2, 95–98; Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, 17. [87] OIOC: P/241/36, pp. 14–15; P/241/37, pp. 511–12. [88] OIOC: P/241/37, pp. 503–04. [89] MNA: ID 14 – Return of the slave population of Mauritius [1827]; CO 167/141 – Return of Slaves Registered in Mauritius between the 16th of October 1826 and the 16th of January 1827. For 1806, see Milbert, Voyage pittoresque, vol. 2, 233 bis. [90] Allen, "Licentious and Unbridled Proceedings," 99–100, 115. [91] Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 143. [92] Teelock, Bitter Sugar, 72. [93] CO 167/92 – Tableau de 220 Negres et Negresses de la Cargaison du Brick le succès de Nantes. [94] Allen, "Maroonage and Its Legacy." [95] Allen, Slaves, Freedmen and Indentured Laborers, especially 105–35. [96] See Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism. [97] See Hoefte, In Place of Slavery; Shineberg, The People Trade.
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