Negotiation, Trade and the Rituals of Encounter: An Examination of the Slave-Trading Voyage of De Zon, 1775–1776

Abstract

AbstractThe intention of this paper is to fill a gap in a rich yet underrepresented aspect of Indian Ocean slave history. I have elected to found this study on a close reading of a journal from a slave-trading vessel that sought slaves for the Cape in Madagascar in the mid-1770s. This vessel, De Zon, conducted a slave-trading operation on behalf of the VOC along the west coast of Madagascar from May 1775 to January 1776. I have undertaken a close reading of the journal maintained by the merchant of De Zon, so as to write a history sensitive to the daily experiences of the slave traders in Madagascar, as well as to the codes and discourse through which this experience was filtered.This paper is primarily concerned with the experience of negotiation and trading as it was recorded by the VOC merchants on the vessels, and is drawn predominantly from the first trading encounter of the crew of De Zon when they arrived in Madagascar in 1775. In contrast to the surveys that comprise the majority of the English-language scholarship on slave trading in Madagascar, this paper is founded on a close reading of particular episodes; it thus represents an attempt at a micronarrative that illustrates and details the historical experience of VOC slave trading on the island at a particular juncture.