History of Bengal textiles: How enslaved Bengali artisans made an impact on global enterprise

Bengal textiles were so renowned in the 17th and 18th centuries that the region attracted European traders for not only the product, but also the producers. Bengali textile workers were forced into slavery and transported to distant lands, where their textile skills were employed in domestic and commercial means, developing a diaspora of Bengali migrant weavers in the transoceanic world.

Bengali textile workers were not enslaved as ancillary to men or as commodities of pleasure alone. They were enslaved and migrated primarily because of their repertoire of skills highly demanded in textile industries in Mexico, and for specific domestic needs in Manila, the Cape of Good Hope and Batavia. This chapter shows how a diaspora of enslaved Bengali textile labourers was developed in Batavia and Cape Town on the one hand, and Manila and Mexico on the other, with a shared skill repertoire which can be traced in the cultural imprints of these slave societies.

The slave raiding and trading were conducted as an organised enterprise driven by a specific demand for slaves, particularly for textile workers from Bengal, and the different zones of control of the European actors who interacted in the trade of these slaves and their engagement in the slave societies….

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