The International Institute of Social History invites you to join the Exploring Slave Trade in Asia (ESTA) Database’s second data launch on Friday, 12 December 2025, 11:00 CET, at our insitute in Amsterdam.
New data and TIDES
Since the launch of the ESTA Database in December 2023, the Database has significantly expanded in scope. Efforts by the ESTA team, collaborating projects at the IISH, and international partners have made possible a new data publication. With these new contributions, the ESTA Database currently contains 5,292 voyages and 9,155 subvoyages. This data lays bare previously unrecorded slave trading patterns from newly added regions such as China, Southeast India, and Mozambique with an increased chronological coverage into the twentieth century. In total, the ESTA Database now contains explicit references to at least between 440,000–448,000 coercively and violently displaced enslaved people.
During the event, the ESTA team will also debut its data entry system, TIDES. This entry system allows users to contribute data on slave trade voyages while retaining full data ownership, and to annotate existing ESTA voyages.
Presentations
The launch of the new data and entry system will be accompanied by several data and project presentations from researchers that are related to ESTA or the field of Indian Ocean slavery, such as postdoctoral researchers Miguel Rodrigues (IISH) and Kathleen Burke (National University of Singapore), PhD researchers Britt van Duijvenvoorde and Philipp Huber (IISH-Radboud University), junior researcher Bethany Warner (IISH), and student assistants Milan Francis and Femke Brink (IISH). Several of these researchers have contributed significant data to the new ESTA data release, or plan to do so in the near future.
Documentary screening Slave Island
After these presentations, we will screen the documentary Slave Island, which follows the activist Jeremy Kewuan in his quest to eradicate human trafficking from Sumba, the Indonesian island he calls home. The documentary forms a testimony of the individuals who still suffer under conditions of modern slavery whilst tracing their current-day experiences back to its colonial roots. Filmmaker Jimmy Hendrickx will join the event to introduce the documentary and answer questions from the audience.
Several experts in the field, including Jennifer Gaynor (University at Buffalo), Hideaki Suzuki (Nagasaki University) and Filipa Ribeiro da Silva (IISH), will be present to discuss the new ESTA data, the significance of the documentary Slave Island, and the enduring legacies of colonialism and slavery that mark people’s lives to this very day.
Programme
11:00 Introduction
11:05 Data and project presentations
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Launch of new data by Matthias van Rossum (IISH-Radboud University) and Pascal Konings (IISH)
14:00 Reactions by experts
14:15 Q&A
14:45 Introduction documentary Slave Island
15:00 Screening of Slave Island
16:30 Panel with filmmaker
17:00 Drinks
Practical
Date 12 December 2025
Time 11-17
Place IISG, Cruquiusweg 31, Amsterdam
Entrance Free admission, but because of the organisation, please send an email to event@iisg.nl if you want to join. Online participation is also possible. When registering, indicate that you would like to receive the Zoom link.
