Histories of slavery in the Indian Ocean world have largely centered on plantation economies, coastal societies and formally codified systems of bondage, often marginalizing frontier regions where enslavement operated outside these regimes through different social and political logics. This paper intervenes in this historiography by examining slavery in the Naga Hills (present-day Nagaland, India) during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a critical frontier site for rethinking slavery and abolition in a global perspective. Employing a socio-historical approach, the study draws on colonial administrative correspondence, missionary writings, and ethnographic accounts, and vernacular resources to reconstruct local practices of captivity, labour extraction and dependency. By comparing the stated goals of abolitionist policy with its uneven implementation on the imperial frontier, the paper demonstrates how abolition produced contradictions and how practices labelled as ‘custom’ or ‘domestic dependency’ persisted under new moral and administrative frameworks, while colonial authorities selectively intervened in the systems of bondage. The frontier context of the Naga Hills thus makes visible the tensions between global abolitionist ideals and local social realities, showing how slavery’s legacies were fragmented, negotiated and reshaped rather than resolved. It is through this analytical Juxtaposition between policy, discourse and lived practice that the paper repositions the Naga Hills as a critical site for understanding the complexities of slavery’s global afterlives in the Indian Ocean world.

Authors:
Obendangla Longkumer, People’s College, India

About the Presenter(s)
My name is Dr. Obendangla and i am currently teaching at People’s College Mokokchungl, Nagaland, India as an Assistant Professor at the Department of History. I have worked in this college for around 3 years now. My area of interest is slavery.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Monday Schedule

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