Slaves of the Widow Tsieko: Chinese Slaveholders in the Dutch Empire

Abstract

abstract:This article shifts the focus from European to Chinese slave owners in the Dutch empire. We examine Ambon Island, where a resilient Chinese community was documented in detailed seventeenth-century censuses that allow us to peer into individual households. These records show that slave ownership was ubiquitous, with some Chinese residents owning dozens of enslaved people. These slaveholders included Chinese women, such as the Widow Tsieko, who were former slaves themselves. Although the census records provide important insights including striking examples of female mobility, they illuminate only one part of a wider spectrum of lived experience, hiding what everyday life was like for many Chinese-owned slaves. Eighteenth-century legal records reveal the routinized violence that was so intertwined with the lives of enslaved people in Chinese households under Dutch rule.摘要:十七世紀的荷屬安汶島上的華人,普遍擁有奴隸:278 華人居民就擁有 600 名 奴隸,其中最特別的,是本身即是奴隸出身的寡婦 Tsieko。華人社群男女比例極度 不平衡,加上荷蘭的遺產法律,使得少數女性擁有特別的上升流動管道,但是這 樣的流動性是來自於殖民社會多元法律習俗的斡旋,與奴隸勞動的制度性暴力仍 同時並存。