Subaltern lives : biographies of colonialism in the Indian Ocean world, 1790-1920 /Clare Anderson.

"This book explores fragments from the lives of socially marginal men and women who were associated with Indian Ocean penal settlements and colonies in the nineteenth century. It interrogates colonialism from a subaltern history perspective, and places penal transportation in a broad global context. It takes a life-writing approach, weaving together biographical snapshots of convicts - ordinary Indians and Eurasians; African slaves, apprentices and ex-slaves; indentured labourers; soldiers and rebels - with the lives of sailors, indigenous peoples and the 'poor whites' of Empire."--