'Belonging to the Company': Transporting and documenting unfree labour in the Indian Ocean, 1719-1790.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, French East India Company ships carried numerous sailors, soldiers, passengers and unfree labourers to and from various ports of trade in the Indian Ocean. Although European merchant companies developed extensive documenting systems, certain elements received little attention in the records. When it came to tracking unfree labourers, Company employees used terminology with ambiguous meanings and categories that were codified in the Atlantic context and therefore not initially applicable in the Indian Ocean.