Featured blogs:
- Blog | Echoes of genocidal erasure: a reflection on historical ‘voices’ and digital infrastructure for colonial archives
Matthias van Rossum, IISH // The fog of colonial history has obscured many marginalized voices that deserve to be heard. Yet sometimes, if we read carefully, such voices scream to us... - Blog | Incomplete Echoes from the Past: A Historian’s experiences in a Colonial Archive
Iliana Tintori Reyes, PhD Researcher, International Institute of Social History // Old papers scattered on a wooden table, a latent past waiting to be discovered by the hands of the present, eager to unearth… Read more: Blog | Incomplete Echoes from the Past: A Historian’s experiences in a Colonial Archive - Blog | António, an enslaved man about to get married
Camille Le Brettevillois, PhD Researcher, International Institute of Social History // In 1613, in Lisbon, António Tinoquo, an enslaved man originally from the Bay of Bengal, appeared to the ecclesiastical trial of Lisbon to… Read more: Blog | António, an enslaved man about to get married - Blog | Uncovering the Invisible: Enslaved Women’s Work in the Cape Colony
Martijn Veenhuijsen, MA History at Radboud University // Strategically located halfway between Europe and Asia, between 1652 and 1795, the Cape of Good Hope functioned both a refreshment station and settler colony within the… Read more: Blog | Uncovering the Invisible: Enslaved Women’s Work in the Cape Colony - Blog | Vitória Dias: A Good Christian?
Philipp Huber, PhD Researcher, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam // On 30 December 1607, the Lisbon Inquisition questioned Vitória Dias. It had already questioned many others about her. Vitória was part of the… Read more: Blog | Vitória Dias: A Good Christian? - Blog | Helena’s trial for freedom
Britt van Duijvenvoorde, PhD Researcher, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam // I can hardly imagine how Helena felt when she heard that “the signatories put more credence in the words […] of a… Read more: Blog | Helena’s trial for freedom
Find more blogs and reports
Upcoming events:
- 2026-03-04/06 | Conference | GLOBALISE: Colonial Pasts, New Approaches and Historiographical Futures
- 2026-03-10 | Seminar | Kate Ekama | Family, freedom and remembering
- 2026-05-12 | Seminar | Patricia Souza de Faria | Marriage and Social Networks of Enslaved and Freed Persons in Lisbon
- 2026-06-02 | Seminar | Nira Wickramasinghe | Slave descent and the borders of race
Find more events
Recent reports:
- Report | Rethinking Horizons for Histories of Slavery in Asia: ESTA Data Launch & Documentary Screening Slave Island
Britt van Duijvenvoorde, PhD Researcher, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam // Slave trade in Asia is slowly gaining more attention in academic and public spaces. The… Read more: Report | Rethinking Horizons for Histories of Slavery in Asia: ESTA Data Launch & Documentary Screening Slave Island - Report | The Posthumus ESTER Conference
Camille Le Brettevillois, PhD Researcher, International Institute of Social History // The Posthumus ESTER RDC 2025 held in the University of Seville, Spain, between the 3rd and… Read more: Report | The Posthumus ESTER Conference - Report | Navigating Worlds of Coerced Labor
Britt van Duijvenvoorde, PhD Researcher, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam // On the 16-17 October, the Workshop Navigating Worlds of Coerced Labour: Procurement, Mobility, Exploitation and Resistance of Enslaved,… Read more: Report | Navigating Worlds of Coerced Labor - Report | Seminar “Dependency, Bondage and Slavery in Northern Eurasia”
Pascal Konings, PhD Researcher and ESTA Project Coordinator, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam // On Wednesday, October 1, 2025, the Joint Projects on Slavery (IISH-Radboud University)… Read more: Report | Seminar “Dependency, Bondage and Slavery in Northern Eurasia” - Report | Colonial law, slavery and interactions
Pepijn Trienekens, PhD candidate at the Radboud University and the IISH // The history of slavery and colonialism receives growing attention in academic research, encouraged by a… Read more: Report | Colonial law, slavery and interactions