The archival ledgers of the second French East India Company (1719–70) appear well suited to digital analysis, but a quantitative approach can have risks. From our experience on a multi-year digital humanities project that revisits these maritime trade records, we share pros and cons of using relational databases to analyse individuals, geography and identity. A better understanding of the biases and priorities of the original record creators allows us to recover women, children and free and enslaved racialized labourers. Rather than attempting to eliminate distortions in these ‘dirty’ primary sources and their subsequent layers of interpretation, we recommend developing flexible interpretative layers that allow for changes in historical understanding, and that can be reused by historians asking different questions. These enriched records help us revise the position of the Compagnie des Indes in French colonial history, providing new evidence of the diverse individuals who participated in trans-oceanic trade.
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Robertshaw et al. (2026) studied this question.
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