Abstract

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. This article explores case studies of slaves escaping in and around the Dutch East India Company (VOC) city of Cochin. Studying court records that bring to light the strategies and social networks of enslaved runaways provides new insights into the characteristics of slavery and the conditions of slaves in and around VOC-Cochin. The findings indicate that the social and everyday conditions under which slaves lived were highly diverse and shaped by the direct relations between slave and master, influenced by elements of trust, skill, and control. Relations of slavery nevertheless remained engrained by the recurrence of physical punishments and verbal threats, despite sometimes relatively open situations. This reminds us that easy dichotomies of “benign,” “Asian,” “household,” or “urban” versus “European,” “Atlantic,” or “plantation” slavery obscure as much as they reveal.

中文翻译：

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逃亡中：十八世纪科钦的逃亡奴隶及其社交网络

摘要

尽管人们越来越关注印度洋和印度尼西亚群岛世界中奴隶制的历史，但有关这些地区奴隶制的性质或特征的争论仍未解决。尽管有些学者强调存在与美洲类似的严酷形式的遗传奴隶制，但另一些学者则认为，亚洲的奴隶制本质是城市的，基于地位的，并且比大西洋世界温和。本文探讨了在荷兰东印度公司（VOC）的科钦市及其附近逃离奴隶的案例研究。研究法庭记录，揭示被奴役逃亡者的策略和社会网络，可以提供关于奴隶制的特征以及VOC-科钦及其周边地区奴隶状况的新见解。研究结果表明，奴隶生活的社会和日常条件高度多样化，并受奴隶与主人之间直接关系的影响，受信任，技能和控制等因素的影响。尽管如此，尽管有时情况相对开放，但奴隶制的关系仍然因反复出现的体罚和口头威胁而根深蒂固。这使我们想起，“良性”，“亚洲”，“家庭”或“城市”与“欧洲”，“大西洋”或“种植”奴隶制的简单二分法所揭示的内容模糊不清。