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19 June 2008

Dutch Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean in the 17th c.

http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jwh/14.2/vink.html

Markus Vink, "'The World's Oldest Trade': Dutch Slavery and Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century," Journal of World History, June 2003, Vol.14, No.2.

[http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jwh/14.2/vink.html]

Markets of Supply: Origins of Slaves
Markets of Demand: Destinations of Slaves
Routes to Slavery
Slave Occupations
Size of Dutch Slavery and Volume of the Slave Trade
Slave Resistance and Slave Revolt

Conclusion
Following the discovery of the seasonal monsoon regime sometime after 300 B.C.E., the societies and cultures of the Indian Ocean basin became integrated in a regional world-system. As the world's oldest trade, trafficking in captive labor involved, among other things, the migration of peoples, cultural diffusion, and economic exchange. Arriving in the Indian Ocean in the late sixteenth century, the Dutch took over and interacted with preexisting systems of slavery and dependency. Like its Indian Ocean predecessor, the Dutch Indian Ocean slave trade was urban-centered, drawing captive labor from three interlocking and overlapping circuits or subregions: "Greater South Africa," South Asia, and Southeast Asia. [...] The number of company and total Dutch slaves and the accompanying volume of the annual slave trades fluctuated greatly. In the late seventeenth century, there were about 4,000 company slaves and perhaps 60,000 total slaves. In order to replenish these numbers, 200–400 company slaves and 3,200–5,600 total slaves had to be imported each year. Assuming an average mortality rate en route of 20%, 240–480 company slaves and 4,476–7,716 total Dutch slaves had to be exported from their respective catchment areas. [...]

Notes [note 1- note 110]

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