The early history of slavery in the Indian subcontinent is contested because it depends on the translations of terms such as dasa and dasyu.[1][2] Greek writer Megasthenes, in his 4th century BCE work Indika, states that slavery was banned within the Maurya Empire,[3] while the multilingual, mid 3rd Century BCE, Edicts of Ashoka independently identify obligations to slaves (Greek: δούλοις) and hired workers (Greek: μισθωτοῖς), within the same Empire.[1][4]
Slavery in India existed during the Muslim domination of northern India after the 11th century.[1] It became a social institution with the enslavement of Hindus, along with the use of slaves in armies, a practice within Muslim kingdoms of the time.[5][6][7] According to Muslim historians of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire era, after the invasions of Hindu kingdoms, other Indians were taken as slaves, with many exported to Central Asia and West Asia.[1][8] Slaves from the Horn of Africa were also imported into the Indian subcontinent to serve in the households of the powerful or the Muslim armies of the Deccan Sultanates and the Mughal Empire.[9][10][11]
The Portuguese imported African slaves into their Indian colonies on the Konkan coast between about 1530 and 1740.[12][13] Under European Christianity, slavery in India continued through the 18th and 19th centuries. During the colonial era, Indians were taken into different parts of the world as slaves by various European merchant companies as part of the Indian Ocean slave trade.[11][14]
^ abcdeScott C. Levi (2002). "Hindus Beyond the Hindu Kush: Indians in the Central Asian Slave Trade". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 12 (3). Cambridge University Press: 277–288. doi:10.1017/S1356186302000329. JSTOR25188289. S2CID155047611., Quote: "Sources such as the Arthasastra, the Manusmriti and the Mahabharata demonstrate that institutionalized slavery was well established in India by beginning of the common era. Earlier sources suggest that it was likely to have been equally widespread by the lifetime of the Buddha (sixth century BC), and perhaps even as far back as the Vedic period. [footnote 2: (...) While it is likely that the institution of slavery existed in India during the Vedic period, the association of the Vedic 'Dasa' with 'slaves' is problematic and likely to have been a later development."
^Indrani Chatterjee; Richard M. Eaton (2006). Slavery and South Asian History. Indiana University Press. pp. 122–123. ISBN978-0-253-11671-0., Quote: "The importation of Ethiopian slaves into the western Deccan profoundly altered the region's society and culture [...]"
^Walker, Timothy (2004). "Abolishing the slave trade in Portuguese India: documentary evidence of popular and official resistance to crown policy, 1842–60". Slavery & Abolition. 25 (2). Taylor & Francis: 63–79. doi:10.1080/0144039042000293045. S2CID142692153.
^Cite error: The named reference Andrea Major 2014 p. 43 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).