Coerced and Free Migration: Global Perspectives (review)

The canvas on which scholars have painted what they know of migration, coerced or free, is akin to an abstract painting of Mondrian—sharp illumination of some areas but little light cast on the remaining vast background. There is so much that we do not know, so many types of migration, so many geographical areas involved, and so many centuries. A scholar of the trans-Atlantic slave trade typically knows little of migration within Russia during the era of its internal passport system; a specialist in African slavery may have only a vague knowledge of Asian contract labor; anthropologists, economists, and historians toil in isolation from one another, and so on.

Eltis' volume is a welcome effort to add perspective to the subject. It collects eleven essays on disparate topics that all lend context and make connections to and from the illuminated areas. Eltis' introduction emphasizes three main themes: the great expansion of mass migration during the four centuries covered by the book; the many variations in the types of migration, involving slaves, serfs, indentured and contract laborers, and free men and women; and the similarities that can be found among these variant forms. The editor's introduction summarizes the economic consequences for the migrants and for the receiving areas; makes comparisons of health, nutrition, and social conditions; and emphasizes the vast gap between migrants who could choose whether to move and those who could not.

The first essay, by Eltis himself, is a general survey of all migration, coerced and free, from the Old World to the New. The high point of this essay is the Appendix, which includes an authoritative updating of Eltis' previous work on the volume of these flows. The numbers are striking. Free persons comprised 20 percent or less of the people carried to the Americas in the three sixty-year periods between 1640 and 1820. Stanley Engerman contributes an essay on how law and regulation impacted migration. Philip Curtin continues his interest in the epidemiology of migration that emphasizes the high variability in the morbidity and mortality among the migrants. Lorena Walsh writes about the cultural impact of free and coerced migration on the colonial Chesapeake region. Marianne Wokeck examines similarities and differences in the large Irish and German flows to eighteenth-century North America. Mechal Sobel discusses the collective identities among the enslaved and free populations of North America, recounting the lives of thirteen people to make the case.

David Northrup's contribution shifts the focus toward Asia, specifically the indentured labor flows to the French Caribbean during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The flow of indentured workers originally contained a strong African component, but this migration eventually consisted almost entirely of Indians. Walton Look Lai continues in the same vein with an essay on Chinese and Indian migrant labor and the many varieties of these Asian flows. Lai presents interesting information about the geographical origin of the workers within both these areas.

Convict labor receives extended treatment from Colin Forster, who discusses the transportation of criminals from Britain and France, emphasizing its positive results for Australia, despite the stereotypes that it encouraged and the hardships that it involved,

Two concluding essays turn their sights on migration within Russia. Richard Hellie treats the flows in early modern Russia from the 1840s to the 1780s, and David Moon discusses the later period of peasant migration, the abolition of serfdom, and the internal passport system in the Russian empire.

Readers inclined to be critical of this book could point to a lack of coherent pattern and connection among the essays, especially the contrast between detailed microstudies and much broader thematic, geographical, and chronological analyses. But such criticism ignores the fact that our knowledge in the broad field of migration studies is spotty and variable. The choice of topics is clearly governed by what is available. A Mondrian painting may have large empty regions...