Loading...
Slavery between the Indian Ocean world and the Spanish Pacific
Flannery, Kristie Patricia Gharala, Norah L. A.
Flannery, Kristie Patricia
Gharala, Norah L. A.
Abstract
Human trafficking forged connections across the Indo-Pacific world. This chapter discusses Consulta 44 that weighs in on the legality of the trafficking of an enslaved man named “Matheo Cafre” in Manila. The case illuminates the seventeenth-century slave trade between the Philippines and South Asia, the trans-Oceanic networks of enslaved people, and the strategies that they used to resist slavery and its specific conditions in global Iberian empires. Matheo, an enslaved man with African ancestry, was married to a woman who lived in what is today the state of Tamil Nadu. He rejected his Indian-born Portuguese enslavers’ attempt to sell him to Manila. Like his counterparts in Asia and Latin America, Matheo understood the importance of his marital status for Catholic authorities, which also resonated with Juan de Paz. This case allows the reader to consider Matheo’s implied or explicit strategies to take control of the conditions of his enslavement vis-à-vis his Iberian enslavers.
Keywords
slavery, slave trade, seventeenth century, Philippines, South Asia, Iberia, Spain, human trafficking
Date
2025-3-23
Type
Book chapter
Journal
Book
Everyday life in the Philippines, 1657-1699 : Selections from the manuscripts of Juan de Paz
Volume
Issue
Page Range
205-222
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Notes
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.