Licentious and unbridled proceedings: The illegal slave trade to Mauritiusand the Seychelles during the early nineteenth century

Census and other demographic data are used to estimate the volume of the il legal slave trade to Mauritius and the Seychelles from Madagascar and the E ast African coast between 1811 and c. 1827. The structure and dynamics of t his illicit traffic, as well as governmental attempts to suppress it, are a lso discussed. The Mauritian and Seychellois trade is revealed to have play ed a greater role in shaping Anglo-Merina and Anglo-Omani relations between 1816 and the early 1820s than previously supposed. Domestic economic consi derations, together with British pressure on the trade's sources of supply, contributed to its demise.