Description
Book SynopsisNira Wickramasinghe uncovers the traces of slavery in the history and memory of the Indian Ocean world, exploring moments of revolt in the lives of enslaved people in Sri Lanka in the wake of abolition.
Slave in a Palanquin offers a vital new portrait of the local and transnational worlds of the colonial-era Asian slave trade in the Indian Ocean.
Trade ReviewSlave in a Palanquin is one of the most remarkable and original works I have read on the history of the Indian Ocean. With her enormous scholarly gifts, Wickramasinghe endeavors to recover what she calls “fugitive lives,” a project that is as much as anything a meditation on the archive of slavery—its silences, fractures, and unexpected shards of illumination. -- Sunil Amrith, author of
Unruly WatersSlave in a Palanquin is a deft exorcism of the specter of slavery for an island whose history is often simplistically cast in terms of colonizer and colonized, or Sinhala and Tamil. It is a model treatment of the diverse forms that slavery could take in the Indian Ocean world. -- Michael Laffan, editor of
Belonging Across the Bay of Bengal: Religious Rites, Colonial Migrations, National RightsAt once humane, lucid, intelligent, and highly innovative, this is a masterly analysis of the various regimes of slavery in Sri Lanka under both Dutch and British colonial rule, their demise, and the reasons they were forgotten. Nira Wickramasinghe has produced a major work of comparative scholarship. -- Robert Ross, author of
The Borders of Race in Colonial South Africa: The Kat River Settlement, 1829–1856A compellingly important work by one of Sri Lanka's best historians.
Slave in a Palanquin challenges narratives of purity and authenticity on an island where murmurings about descent are far too common but where memories of enslavement have been erased. By turning to forgotten records and traces, Wickramasinghe insists on the subaltern, the resistant, and the particular. As the book proceeds, Sri Lanka moves into the center of key debates in world history about labor, memory, freedom, and power. -- Sujit Sivasundaram, author of
Islanded: Britain, Sri Lanka, and the Bounds of an Indian Ocean ColonyEngaging and beautifully written. * Journal of British Studies *
Highly recommended. * Choice *
This ambitious book is a vital contribution that speaks to scholarship both on the Indian Ocean and global slavery. * H-Soz-Kult *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. A Dutch Fiscal’s Murder: Interrogating the Identity of Slaves, Blacks, and “Kaffirs”
2. From Colombo to Galle: Enslaved Bodies in an Archive of Violence
3. Slave in a Palanquin: Jaffna in the Early Nineteenth Century
4. The Chilaw “Experiment”: Labor for Freedom
5. The Plaint of an Emancipated Slave: A Play in Two Acts
6. Eclipse of the Slave: Traces, Hauntings
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
