Database

In 2023, our first public version and map viewer of the database was launched with events in the Netherlands and in Germany (Bonn). This first version of the Exploring Slave Trade in Asia database contained more than 4,000 slave trade voyages transporting hundreds of thousands enslaved individuals across the Indian Ocean and maritime Asia in the sixteenth to nineteenth century.

You can access the database > here <

Established in 2016, the ESTA project developed a relational database model that is able to accommodate the multi-directionality of the slave trade of the wider Indian Ocean and maritime Asia region, as well as the structural differences in source material, existing datasets and new observations.

The ESTA project continues to work on new data, in close collaboration with its partners, such as the China Human Trafficking and Slaving Database and the IISH Slavery Projects. New updates of the database and much more data will be added regularly in coming years.

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More information can be found via events and the IISH Slavery Projects website voices.iisg.nl.

Data contributors

Femke Brink
International Institute of Social History

Britt van Duijvenvoorde
International Institute of Social History

Claude Chevaleyre
ENS Lyon, Institut d’Asie Orientale CNRS

Dr. Wil O. Dijk
Independent researcher

Milan Francis
International Institute of Social History

Alexander Geelen
International Institute of Social History

Marina Goutet
International Institute of Social History

Philipp Huber
International Institute of Social History

Maartje Hids
International Institute of Social History (former student assistant)

Dr. Jane M. Hooper
George Mason University

Bram van den Hout
International Institute of Social History

Pascal Konings
International Institute of Social History (ESTA coordinator)

Hannah de Korte
International Institute of Social History (former student assistant)

Prof. dr. (em.) Gerrit Knaap
Huygens Institute

Menno Leenstra
Independent Researcher

Giacomo Mastrogregori
University of Antwerp

Aleksandra Modelina
Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, University of Bonn

Sam Miske
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Dr. Robert Parthesius
New York University Abu Dhabi

Prof. dr. Matthias van Rossum
International Institute of Social History

Samantha Sint Nicolaas
International Institute of Social History (former ESTA coordinator)

Ronald van der Spiegel
Independent researcher

Prof. dr. (em.) Heather Sutherland
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Nicholas Sy
University of the Philippines Diliman

Merve Tosun
International Institute of Social History (former ESTA coordinator)

Dr. Rafaël Thiébaut
Independent researcher

Mike de Windt
International Institute of Social History (former student assistant)