Networks of Empire and Imperial Sovereignty

Private slave trade in the Dutch Indian Ocean world: a study into the networks and backgrounds of the slavers and the enslaved in South Asia and South Africa

“…The second largest groups come from the east coast of India (23) and from Bengal (25). Individuals from South Sulawesi (19) and Java (11) in the Indonesian archipelago are also present in the sample. Even Madagascar is represented (3).…”

“…Ward states that 'individuals profited from their personal small-scale slave trade, particularly if they had access to the Company's transportation network in which to sell their slaves at sites where they could obtain higher prices'. 16 This access to the Company's transportation network could mean that slaves were ordered to be sent over from one settlement to the other with Company ships as illustrated by one of Van Riebeeck's slaves, Maria van Bengalen, who was sent to him from Batavia. 17 Slaves were brought over by owners for use as domestics on the return journey, even 'in spite of official prohibitions'.…”

Patterns of Empire and the Politics of Comparison

“…First, Go is one of a growing number of scholars that has contested the putative exceptionalism of US imperialism. As a historical sociologist, Go's interests center on "overarching patterns and dynamics and underlying forms and features," and his method is to examine the British and US empires "across comparable historical phases" of hegemonic ascendency, maturity, and decline (21). "Big comparisons," he claims, can illuminate and explain common patterns.…”

“…Instead, she focuses on the Indian Ocean arena and how the VOC "brought partial territorial and legal sovereignties into a single imperial web." 19 Interested primarily in the movements of people, Ward reveals the knotted, asymmetrical, and unexpected webs through which imperial power traveled. Her emphasis on movement and her lack of investment in commensurability offers an instructive approach to elucidating imperial continuities, discontinuities, and entanglements.…”

Introduction to Marginal Centers: Writing Life Histories in the Indian Ocean World

“…4 At the same time, the volume's concern with individuals in history lays stress on the Indian Ocean as what Kerry Ward has described elsewhere as a "peopled" rather than simply a political space. 5 Our examinations of mobility and movement within and across the region enable us to make new geographical connections, bringing together the ports and littorals of the Dutch, French, British, and Malagasy empires. 6 Individual lives network the sea with land too, so that interior cities, highlands and jungles also become part of the Indian Ocean world.…”