29/07/2026
Conventional histories often assume that economic expansion naturally produces social and political vitality. Seventeenth-century southeast Bengal, however, reveals a more complex reality. During a period when the active delta was expanding agricultural production and creating new rice-growing lands, environmental pressures and social instability produced a severe crisis. One expression of this crisis was the rise of slave raiding by Portuguese-Arakanese forces, commonly associated with the Magh raids. The subsequent involvement of Arakanese, Portuguese, and later Dutch East India Company (VOC) traders exposed a striking paradox: economic growth and international commerce could coexist with social destruction.
The European powers did not introduce slavery or slave trading to Bengal. Long before their arrival, Bengal was connected to wider networks of human trafficking. A significant trade in eunuchs, particularly from Sylhet, supplied markets in West Asia and China until the Mughal emperor Jahangir suppressed it. Earlier examples can also be found in medieval Southeast Asia. The kingdom of Bagan in dry-zone Burma (849–c.1287) operated a state-controlled system based on religious patronage, labour organisation, construction projects, and regulated trade. Its inscriptions refer to Assamese and Bengali settlers from Pattikera in present-day Comilla, a region linked to the Buddhist centre of Mainamati-Lalmai. A twelfth-century inscription records that six Indian slaves could be exchanged for one elephant and forty slaves for one horse. Such evidence demonstrates that slavery was deeply embedded in regional economic and political systems before European expansion.
Despite the lasting memory of Magh raids in Bengali folklore, Bengal itself did not become a major centre of the global slave trade. Compared with the Coromandel Coast, which exported thousands of enslaved people during the seventeenth century, exports from Arakan and Bengal were comparatively limited. VOC records show that between 1659 and 1661 the Coromandel Coast supplied around 8,000–10,000 slaves, while Arakan and Bengal together supplied just over 900. The trade declined relatively quickly, partly because the supply of captives became exhausted. By 1682, VOC Governor-General Cornelius Speelman declared that the company would withdraw from the Arakan slave trade because there were no longer enough slaves available.
Nevertheless, the human impact of these raids was profound. Portuguese traders had already established networks linking Bengal with ports across the Indian Ocean. During the seventeenth century, Portuguese and later Dutch merchants transported captives from Bengal to Arakan, Goa, Southeast Asia, and other destinations. Hugli, Pipli, and Mrauk-U became important centres for the sale and redistribution of enslaved people.
Bengali women were particularly valued in overseas markets because of their skills in textile production. Portuguese missionary Sebastian Manrique noted in 1629 that Bengal produced highly prized embroidered quilts, bed hangings, and decorative textiles known as colchas or “Bengalla” quilts. These luxury goods, exported to European markets, were produced in places such as Hugli and Satgaon. Some of the skilled women who created them may have been among the captives transported through these networks.
Dutch records provide further evidence of the scale of the trade. Between 1626 and 1662, the VOC regularly exported between 150 and 400 slaves annually from the Arakan-Bengal region. The highest levels occurred in 1647 and 1655, when exports reached 1,046 and 1,803 people respectively. During the early decades of Batavia’s existence, Indian and Arakanese slaves formed a major part of the workforce at the Dutch colonial headquarters. Between 1646 and 1649, for example, nearly 60 percent of manumitted slaves in Batavia came from South Asia, with Bengal alone accounting for over 40 percent.
The majority of captives traded through the Bay of Bengal were adult men, though women and children were also transported. VOC figures indicate that men represented about 63 percent of traded slaves, women 30.6 percent, boys 2.7 percent, and girls 2.6 percent. Slave prices varied according to age, gender, and physical ability, with men generally selling for higher prices than women or children.
The renewed intensity of slave raiding in the seventeenth century was connected to wider economic and environmental transformations. Historian Anthony Reid has argued that the sixteenth-century expansion of Bay of Bengal commerce eventually produced social crisis by the seventeenth century. As international demand for textiles, metal goods, and skilled labour increased, enslaved people became valuable economic assets. They were employed not only in households but also in workshops, armies, and public works throughout Southeast Asia.
From the mid-seventeenth century, Magh raids devastated parts of southeast Bengal. Arakanese-Portuguese forces used light vessels to pe*****te river channels and coastal settlements, capturing entire communities. Contemporary observers described villages emptied of inhabitants and fertile islands abandoned. Thomas Bowrey recorded that many islands at the mouth of the Ganges had become deserted because inhabitants feared raids by Arakanese forces. François Bernier similarly described how raiders entered the waterways of Lower Bengal, seized villagers during markets and ceremonies, and carried them away as slaves.
The effects were visible across the landscape. When Sebastian Manrique travelled through southeast Bengal between 1629 and 1643, he found areas such as Dakhin Shahbazpur, once associated with the powerful Baro Bhuiya ruler Pratapaditya, already depopulated. By the 1670s, prosperous settlements such as Bakla had declined as raids, ecological change, and saltwater intrusion damaged agricultural production. English observers later noted that places once known for revenue and trade had become wilderness.
Slave raiding also affected western Bengal. Portuguese traders operated a separate network centred on ports such as Tamluk, where captives were sold at Naraghat. Mughal chroniclers described brutal practices used to transport prisoners, including chaining and confinement aboard ships. Although officially prohibited, the trade continued through offshore markets and intermediaries.
Paradoxically, slavery also contributed to the growth of certain commercial centres. Along the Chittagong coast, small settlements such as Angarcale and Dianga expanded as slave-trading hubs. Manrique reported that thousands of captives passed through these ports within a few years, transforming fishing villages into urban centres connected to Indian Ocean commerce. Thus, the same networks that generated wealth and urbanisation also depended on violence and forced displacement.
By the eighteenth century, the consequences of earlier raids remained visible. British surveys recorded declining populations in parts of southeast Bengal, and James Rennell’s maps identified deserted regions that had been abandoned because of “the Ravages of the Muggs.” Although the total number of Bengali slaves exported overseas was relatively small compared with other regions, the social disruption caused by raids was enormous. Many captives were absorbed into settlements in Arakan and neighbouring regions rather than appearing in overseas trade statistics.
The broader economic consequences remain debated. Bengal had been one of the Mughal Empire’s most productive provinces, valued primarily for agricultural revenue. Under Akbar, Bengal’s assessed revenue ranked among the highest of the empire. However, by the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, agricultural growth slowed and revenue stagnated. Whether this decline was directly caused by slave raiding remains uncertain, but the coincidence between social disruption, environmental change, and economic decline is significant.
Later colonial developments transformed the memory and geography of the delta. British expansion, land reclamation, and hydraulic engineering reshaped Bengal’s wetlands and restored many areas previously abandoned. By the nineteenth century, forests had been cleared, populations returned, and the Magh threat had largely disappeared from public life.
The history of southeast Bengal therefore challenges simple assumptions about progress and prosperity. Economic expansion in the delta existed alongside violence, displacement, and ecological crisis. The region’s seventeenth-century experience demonstrates that commercial growth could generate both wealth and devastation, producing a landscape shaped equally by agriculture, trade, slavery, and environmental change.
SAT Practice Questions: “Slavery, Commerce and Crisis in Seventeenth-Century Bengal”
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to:
A. argue that European powers introduced slavery to Bengal and expanded an existing system
B. demonstrate that economic growth in Bengal occurred alongside social disruption and exploitation
C. explain why Bengal became the largest slave-exporting region in the Indian Ocean
D. describe how Mughal rulers successfully prevented slave trading in Bengal
2. According to the passage, why does the author mention the medieval kingdom of Bagan?
A. To show that Southeast Asia had no connection with Bengal before European arrival
B. To prove that slavery was created by Portuguese traders
C. To provide evidence that systems of slavery existed in the region before European involvement
D. To explain why Bengal became politically controlled by Burma
3. The passage suggests that the Portuguese and Dutch slave trades in Bengal were different from the slave trades of some other regions because they were:
A. primarily focused on capturing European prisoners
B. relatively limited in scale compared with other major slave-exporting regions
C. completely controlled by the Mughal government
D. based mainly on voluntary migration
Answer: B
Explanation: The author compares Bengal with the Coromandel Coast, noting that Bengal exported far fewer slaves.
4. Which choice best describes the relationship between economic development and slavery in the passage?
A. Economic development eliminated the need for forced labour.
B. Economic development and slavery were unrelated phenomena.
C. Economic development sometimes increased demand for enslaved labour.
D. Economic development prevented international trade networks from forming.
5. The author most likely includes the example of Bengali women producing “Bengalla” quilts to illustrate that:
A. Bengal’s textile production depended partly on skilled enslaved labour
B. European markets rejected Bengal’s manufactured goods
C. Bengali artisans avoided international trade
D. Portuguese merchants were uninterested in luxury goods
6. According to VOC records cited in the passage, the largest numbers of slaves exported from Arakan-Bengal occurred during which decades?
A. The 1500s and 1510s
B. The 1620s and 1640s
C. The 1660s and 1680s
D. The 1700s and 1720s
Answer: B
Explanation: The passage states that the 1620s and 1640s saw the highest levels of Dutch slave exports.
7. The descriptions of deserted islands and abandoned settlements primarily serve to emphasize:
A. the failure of agriculture throughout all of Bengal
B. the environmental and demographic consequences of slave raids
C. the success of Portuguese colonization
D. the decline of European influence in Asia
8. Which statement would the author most likely agree with?
A. Slave trading was the only factor responsible for Bengal’s economic decline.
B. Bengal’s history cannot be understood without considering both prosperity and violence.
C. European merchants had no economic interests in Bengal.
D. The Mughal Empire completely controlled Indian Ocean trade.
9. The phrase “economic growth and social destruction could coexist” most directly reflects the passage’s discussion of:
A. agricultural expansion alongside slave raids
B. Mughal military victories alongside European defeats
C. religious conflict alongside technological progress
D. declining trade alongside increasing population
Answer: A
Explanation: The passage’s central paradox is that expanding agricultural and commercial activity occurred while communities were being devastated by raids.
10. Which of the following would provide the strongest additional support for the author’s argument?
A. Evidence showing that Bengal had no overseas trade before the seventeenth century
B. Records documenting population decline in areas frequently targeted by slave raiders
C. Evidence that European traders avoided Bengal completely
D. Documents proving that all enslaved people returned to Bengal
SAT Evidence-Based Pair Question
11. The author’s claim that “economic growth and social breakdown could occur simultaneously” is supported by which evidence from the passage?
A. Bengal produced luxury textiles while some communities were being captured and displaced.
B. Mughal rulers banned all forms of slavery throughout the empire.
C. European traders ended slavery in Bengal after arriving.
D. Bengal’s agricultural revenue increased continuously until colonial rule.
Vocabulary-in-Context Question
12. As used in the passage, “paradox” most nearly means:
A. an obvious conclusion
B. a historical record
C. a situation containing seemingly contradictory realities
D. a political agreement
Answer: C
Explanation: The passage presents the contradiction of prosperity existing alongside destruction.
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