“Forced Labour at the Frontier of Empires: Manipur and the French Congo”, Comparatif.

Yaruipam Muivah , Alessandro Stanziani (1)

1 EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales

Debates about abolition of slavery have essentially focused on two interrelated questions: 1) whether nineteenth and early twentieth century abolitions were a major breakthrough compared to previous centuries (or even millennia) in the history of humankind during which bondage had been the dominant form of labour and human condition. 2) whether they express an action specific to western bourgeoisie and liberal civilization. It is true that the number of abolitionist acts and the people concerned throughout the extended nineteenth century (1780-1914) had no equivalent in history: 30 million Russian peasants, half a million slaves in Saint-Domingue in 1790, four million slaves in the US in 1860, another million in the Caribbean (at the moment of the abolition of 1832-40), a further million in Brazil in 1885 and 250,000 in the Spanish colonies were freed during this period. Abolitions in Africa at the turn of the nineteenth century have been estimated to involve approximately seven million people

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Yaruipam Muivah, Alessandro Stanziani. “Forced Labour at the Frontier of Empires: Manipur and the French Congo”, Comparatif.. Comparativ, 2019, 29 (3), pp.41-64. ⟨hal-02954571⟩