Returning Home: Captured Women and Human Markets in Early Qing China, 1642–1656.

This article examines the experiences of Han Chinese women who were captured and enslaved within the Manchu Eight Banners system during the Ming-Qing transition (early Qing dynasty). It highlights how these women entered bondage through military raids and were incorporated into banner households as slaves, but many fled after the Qing conquest of Beijing in 1644. The study reveals the coexistence and intersection of two bondage systems: Manchu captivity-based bondage and Han civilian-operated human trade, showing that escaping Manchu bondage often led to re-enslavement through Han markets in marriage, concubinage, or prostitution. Through legal case records from the Shunzhi reign (1644–1661), the article challenges Han nationalist narratives that portray the Qing fugitive slave law solely as ethnic oppression, instead illustrating a complex dynamic where both Manchu and Han actors participated in the subjugation and trade of women. This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of gender, ethnicity, and bondage in early Qing China by focusing on the human markets that connected banner and civilian societies. [Extracted from the article]