This collection examines little-studied forms of slavery in the Indian Ocean World up to the period of European economic and political predominance in the 19th and 20th centuries. These studies advance the field beyond the dominant divisions of the Atlantic slave-world, between free and slave status and between liberty and servitude dominated by chattel slavery. The Indian Ocean World was characterized by complex and shifting forms of servitude, many of which differed significant from that of the chattel slave and which were affected by human and natural forces including state-building, commercialization and climate change.