Subaltern Workers, Labour Relations, and Empire Building in the Portuguese Estado da Índia (1510-1663)

How and to what extent did 'free' and unfree non-European labour contributed to build and sustain the Portuguese Asian empire during the 16th and 17th centuries?

This is the main question I will address in this project, by exploring the case study of the Estado da ndia (henceforth EI) between 1510 and 1663.

The main hypothesis I want to test is that the EI was able to develop and sustain itself (even in times of decline) due to a highly intensive extraction and allocation of non-European labour, especially when compared with other European counterparts in the Indian Ocean, namely the Dutch and the English.

This project dialogues therefore with a wider trend in the historiography that analyses the importance of the populations under European imperial dominion for empire building and economic development, especially in what concerns non-European capital, natural resources, and labour. The allocation of labour in colonial settings was noticeable in many dimensions of the everyday life.

This project will focus on three intertwined locus of observation: the military, the urban and the rural labour markets.

By gathering evidence from European and Asian archives, building and testing a dataset on occupational structures and labour relations in the Portuguese EI, EMPIRELAB will offer a first insight in labour dynamics in Portuguese Asia.

The findings of EMPIRELAB will provide historians of the European and non-European empires with comparative data and an innovative perspectivein order to feed larger debates both in academic and non-academic contexts regarding the impact of colonialism in our societies.

It will raise awareness about labour and migration in historical perspective, thus helping to overcome established preconceptions about the relevance of labour for imperial history.

Moreover, it will contribute to an improved assessment of the origins and maintenance of inequalities in the early modern colonial period.