Global slavery

During the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, countless slaves from culturally diverse communities in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia journeyed to Mexico on the ships of the Manila Galleon. Upon arrival in Mexico, they were grouped together and categorized as chinos. Their experience illustrates the interconnectedness of Spain's colonies and the reach of the crown, which brought people together from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe in a historically unprecedented way. In time, chinos in Mexico came to be treated under the law as Indians, becoming indigenous vassals of the Spanish crown after 1672. The implications of this legal change were enormous: as Indians, rather than chinos, they could no longer be held as slaves. Tatiana Seijas tracks chinos’ complex journey from the slave market in Manila to the streets of Mexico City, and from bondage to liberty. In doing so, she challenges commonly held assumptions about the uniformity of the slave experience in the Americas.

This article discusses bonded labor relations and their changes through the example of Slavic migrant workers in late medieval Ragusa (Dubrovnik). Over roughly 150 years, Ragusa changed from a site of localized, endemic labor exploitation to a commodified labor market with transregional implications. Based on a close examination of notary deeds and legislative acts, the article presents an empirically grounded approach to category formation and a careful reconstruction of the Ragusan grammar of coericon. While labels and classification systems for unskilled Slavic migrants changed over time, they remained the “maids-of-all-work”—a nonspecialist labor force that could be taken into service for a variety of tasks wherever they were needed.

This article considers the public history of slavery at plantation museums in the US South and at country houses in Britain. Drawing on original research, the authors critique recent and current efforts to bring connections between these “Big Houses” and the history of slavery to the fore through different methods of interpretation. These elite residences are argued to have largely obscured such connections historically through distancing, distortion, and denial. However, some notable efforts have been made in recent years to diversify public history narratives and more fully represent histories of enslavement. Comparing these American and British house museums, this article contextualizes public history work at these sites and proposes possible lessons from this research, presenting some points to be taken forward which emerge from this transatlantic comparison.

This introduction highlights the contribution of the special issue to a radical contextualisation of the history of the enslaved. In particular, it suggests that the conditions and circumstances that foster or hamper practices of enslavement need to be studied as part of a broader set of labor relations. And it proposes that shifts in the practices of enslavement are closely related to broader transitions in power relations. This double expansion allows connecting the history of enslavement and the enslaved with broader themes in labor and social history.

This article discusses bonded labor relations and their changes through the example of Slavic migrant workers in late medieval Ragusa (Dubrovnik). Over roughly 150 years, Ragusa changed from a site of localized, endemic labor exploitation to a commodified labor market with transregional implications. Based on a close examination of notary deeds and legislative acts, the article presents an empirically grounded approach to category formation and a careful reconstruction of the Ragusan grammar of coericon. While labels and classification systems for unskilled Slavic migrants changed over time, they remained the “maids-of-all-work”—a nonspecialist labor force that could be taken into service for a variety of tasks wherever they were needed.

This introduction highlights the contribution of the special issue to a radical contextualisation of the history of the enslaved. In particular, it suggests that the conditions and circumstances that foster or hamper practices of enslavement need to be studied as part of a broader set of labor relations. And it proposes that shifts in the practices of enslavement are closely related to broader transitions in power relations. This double expansion allows connecting the history of enslavement and the enslaved with broader themes in labor and social history.

This introduction highlights the contribution of the special issue to a radical contextualisation of the history of the enslaved. In particular, it suggests that the conditions and circumstances that foster or hamper practices of enslavement need to be studied as part of a broader set of labor relations. And it proposes that shifts in the practices of enslavement are closely related to broader transitions in power relations. This double expansion allows connecting the history of enslavement and the enslaved with broader themes in labor and social history.