Slaving and Slavery in the Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius and Bourbon and their satellite colony of Seychelles, collectively known as the Mascareignes, were all plantation colonies, as well as significant naval bases from the 17th to 19th centuries. This text uses Mauritian, British and French archival sources to examine both the situation of slaves on the Indian Ocean islands, as painted by court records in particular, and the psychology of both slave traders and slave owners. The book covers the late-18th to mid-19th century, and studies the slave plantations, law courts and the illegal slave trade in the Southwest Indian Ocean, and provides a comparison with literature on Caribbean slave trade.