4. Slavery, Poverty, Kinship

What connections existed among ideas, structures and tropes of slavery, poverty, and kinship in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds?

Students might consider these connections within the framework of the following questions:

  • How did poverty lead to bondage in some societies? 

  • In what different ways were tropes of poverty, poor relief, and kinship adapted to defend servitude in radically diverse social and cultural settings? 

  • How did colonial liberal contractual notions of “free will” blur the boundaries between freedom and bondage in British Asia and Africa? 

  • How did ideas about “paternalism” versus “liberalism” shape the transnational politics of slavery?

    Scroll down for sample primary sources on some of these topics.

Sample Sources for “Slavery, Poverty, Kinship”

Compare and contrast the two sources that follow.

Source 4 A is a justification of slavery within a framework of “proslavery maternalism” by the plantation mistress Louisa McCord of South Carolina; Source 4 B is a deed of sale of a girl child to a dancer/courtesan/sex worker in India.

Reflect on how kinship tropes could be adapted to defend servitude under radically different circumstances in different part of the world

“So far I have lived with my sable subjects, the busy but contented sovereign over a petty realm, believing that I was fulfilling my duty by staying at home, and devoting to their comfort...a large portion of my time as well as my moderate income. I have believed that God Almighty has seen fit, in his wisdom, to suit his creatures to the positions which they are intended to occupy....that as he has formed you and me to be daughters, wives and mothers, ...unfit and unable to [the duties] of man, that He has equally formed diverse men for divers positions in society, according to their powers of mind and body.”

Source 4A (edited and emphasis added by authors)

Excerpted from Louisa McCord, “A Letter to the Duchess of Sutherland from a Lady of South Carolina,”

in Political and Social Essays by Louisa Susanna Cheves McCord, ed., Richard Cecil Lounsbury (1853; repr., Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995), 351-59.

I, Anghonee Bewah, village Sotahmukhi, …do write this bond of assignment of my daughter in 1771 BS to the effect that on receiving Rupees 20 from Mussamat Sona Nuttee of Nuttallah of the same Purgunnah, I give up my daughter Roho to her, who will remain with her according to her wishes and the custom of the country. To this I have no objection. If I make any, it will be entirely false. Sona Nuttee says that I voluntarily adopt this girl as my daughter. I will give her no inconvenience or trouble. She will remain with me and behave according to our profession

Ten witnesses

Source 4B (transcribed, edited, with emphasis added by authors).

Translation of a bill of sale to a ”dancing girl” in Gauhati (British India), 1872

Source: Bengal Judicial Proceedings, West Bengal State Archives, Kolkata, India, cited in Sojourners, n. 321