Des rencontres asymétriques – La traite des enfants dans le Saint-Empire romain germanique

This paper deals with trafficked children in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in the long 18th century. As the Holy Roman Empire was geographically at the margins of the transatlantic slave trade and as the trade in children was not linked to the issues of slave labour and plantation economies that have been extensively addressed in the research on slavery, this phenomenon has often been overlooked. From a German perspective, however, children were not just one group among others to be “brought back” from the colonies; in fact, trafficking in children was a striking feature of human trafficking to the Holy Roman Empire. In this article I discuss the reasons for and dimensions of the phenomenon and analyse the consequences for the children affected.