Relations of Absence : Germans in the East Indies and Their Families c. 1750–1820

In the early modern period thousands of Germans, mostly men but also a few women and children, travelled to the Indian Ocean world in the service of the Dutch and British East India companies (VOC and EIC). Family played a key role for these Ostindienfahrer (East Indies travellers). People’s motives for going were often bound up with family affairs, they left families behind, they struggled to maintain connections to their families while abroad, and they formed new families in the East Indies. Meanwhile people in the Holy Roman Empire took a keen interest in the welfare of relatives abroad. Fa... Mehr ...