During the project we aim to provide updates on project activities, and to develop blogs that reflect on the narratives and voices in the Dutch colonial court records.
- 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 the 5th of November. As members of the Posthumus cohort 2023 & 2024, PhD candidates of our team participated in those intense… Read more: Report | The Posthumus ESTER Conference - 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 the ancient memory of what happened in other times and other places. For many historians,… Read more: Blog | Incomplete Echoes from the Past: A Historian’s experiences in a Colonial Archive - 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, Indentured and Contracted Workers in the Atlantic, and The Asia-Pacific Region was held at the International Institute of Social History. Epitomized by the length of… Read more: Report | Navigating Worlds of Coerced Labor - 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 get married with Luzia da Costa, an enslaved women originally from Angola. The precious and… Read more: Blog | António, an enslaved man about to get married - 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) organized the hybrid seminar “Dependency, Bondage and Slavery in Northern Eurasia” at Radboud University, as part of their monthly seminar series. This… 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 growing corpus of readily available source material through digitalization and text recognition software. Both legal and social historians have profited greatly from… Read more: Report | Colonial law, slavery and interactions - 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 global network of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). During this period, over 60,000 people… Read more: Blog | Uncovering the Invisible: Enslaved Women’s Work in the Cape Colony - Report | DH2025 Lisbon: Accessibility and Citizenship
Bethany Warner, Junior Researcher, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam // On 14th to 18th July, the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organisations (ADHO) hosted its annual Digital Humanities conference at NOVA, Lisbon. The conference, with the theme of “Building Access and Accessibility, Open Science to all Citizens” explored a… Read more: Report | DH2025 Lisbon: Accessibility and Citizenship - Report | Depok: A Story of (Im)material Heritage of Slavery
Britt van Duijvenvoorde, PhD Researcher, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, and Pascal Konings, PhD Researcher and ESTA Project Coordinator, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam // Upon Cornelis Chastelein’s death in 1714, the 200 individuals who had lived their lives in slavery on the pepper plantation of Depok… Read more: Report | Depok: A Story of (Im)material Heritage of Slavery - 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 merchant Henrique Dias de Milão’s household. This household consisted of “New Christians”, former Jews converted… Read more: Blog | Vitória Dias: A Good Christian? - Report | DH Benelux 2025
Bethany Warner, Junior Researcher, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam // The 12th edition of the Digital Humanities Benelux conference took place last week at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam. The DH Benelux conference is one of the main venues for disseminating research and exchanging ideas within the community… Read more: Report | DH Benelux 2025 - Report | Congress on the History of Families in Albacete, Spain
Nicholas Sy, assistant professor at the Department of History, University of the Philippines Diliman and External PhD candidate, Radboud University // Nicholas C. Sy and Eva Maria Lehner broke off from the group who went from Amsterdam to Bonn and, ironically, went from Bonn to Spain for a Congress… Read more: Report | Congress on the History of Families in Albacete, Spain - Report | ESTA Network Workshop: Bonn 2025
Pascal Konings, PhD Researcher and ESTA Project Coordinator, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam // On May 9th 2025, the ESTA network workshop “From slave trade to contract labour and shipping in Asia: Digital methods and collaboration” was held at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS),… Read more: Report | ESTA Network Workshop: Bonn 2025 - 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 council [raad] than of the girl Helena and her testimony”—though I suspect she saw it… Read more: Blog | Helena’s trial for freedom