The PhD thesis of postdoctoral researcher Rafaël Thiébaut won the 2018 Thesis Prize of the Comité national pour la mémoire et l’histoire de l’esclavage (http://www.cnmhe.fr/). In his thesis he retraces the political, economic and social consequences and the quantitative aspects of the slave trade done by European mercantile trading companies on Madagascar during a period of two hundred years (1596-1810). Rafaël defended his thesis entitled Traites des esclaves et commerce néerlandais et français à Madagascar (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles) in November 2017 under joint supervision of Professor Ulbe Bosma (IISG and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Professor Bertrand Hirsch (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne). The award ceremony will take place in Paris on the 23th of May. Rafaël received the prize from Annick Girardin, French minister of Overseas territories.