Over the course of the 18th century, European vessels crisscrossed the Atlantic and Indian oceans in the name of commercial and political gain. The merchant ships of the French ‘Compagnie des Indes’ produced reams of bureaucratic records, many of which have scarcely been analyzed. This project sets out to find patterns in these documents and to recover stories of the individuals on board--not just the European and South Asian sailors who kept the ships on course, but the diverse passengers, soldiers, and stowaways who travelled along with them. This website presents preliminary analysis of the rich documents associated with the peregrinations of one vessel, the Prince de Conti (1754-1765).  Click below to learn more...