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The history of slavery covers many different forms of human exploitation across many cultures throughout human history. Slavery, generally defined, refers to the systematic exploitation of labor for work and services without consent and/or the possession of other persons property. There is no clear timeline for the formation of slavery in any formalized sense. Slavery can be traced to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1760 BC), which refers to slavery as an already established institution.Mesopotamia: The Code of Hammurabi. “e.g. Prologue, "the shepherd of the oppressed and of the slaves". Code of Laws #7, "If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man".”
Gustave Boulanger\'s painting The Slave Market.
Slavery in the ancient cultures was known to occur in civilizations as old as Sumer, and found in every such civilization, including Ancient Egypt, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Ancient Greece, Rome and parts of its empire, and the Islamic Caliphate. Such institutions were a mixture of debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves.Demography, Geography and the Sources of Roman Slaves, by W. V. Harris: The Journal of Roman Studies, 1999 In the Roman Empire, probably over 25% of the population was enslaved.BBC - History - Resisting Slavery in Ancient Rome Scholars believe that 30 to 40% of the total population of Italy was enslaved.Roman Slavery
An important exception occurred under the reign of King Cyrus who founded the Achaemenid Empire and liberated slaves in conquered territories. Indeed much of the architectural feats of this period came from invention of coin currency which precipitated wage labour.
Slavery was an important element in the development of the ancient Greek city-states. Records of slavery in Ancient Greece go as far back as Mycenaean Greece. The treatment of Greek slaves could be said to be harsh, but not extremely brutal. The Spartans had earlier reduced an entire population to a pseudo-slavery called helots. In Ancient Greece about 30% of the population consisted of slaves.Ancient Greece
Ancient Greek art, showing a slave giving a mother her child.
As the Roman Republic expanded outward, entire populations were enslaved, thus creating an ample supply. The people subjected to Roman slavery came from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. Such oppression by an elite minority eventually led to slave revolts (see Roman Servile Wars); the Third Servile War led by Spartacus was the most famous and severe. Greeks, Berbers, Germans, Britons, Thracians, Gauls (or Celts), Jews, Arabs, and many more were slaves used not only for labour, but also for amusement (e.g. gladiators and sex slaves). If a slave ran away, he was liable to be crucified. By the late Republican era, slavery had become a vital economic pillar in the wealth of Rome. Slavery was so common, and citizenship restricted so firmly (only to native-born adult males), that the slaves in Rome far outnumbered the citizens.Slavery in Ancient Rome
Due to Biblical descriptions, the definitions of slavery in the Ancient Egyptian context is hotly debated. Archaeological discoveries by Mark Lehner and Zahi Hawass lead some to claim that the workers who built the pyramids were not enslaved. [1] As practiced in ancient Egypt, slavery was likely more akin to slavery in the medieval world rather than trans-Atlantic slavery: Persons generally became enslaved in ancient Egypt by virtue of being captives (or prisoners) of war, committing criminal or other indecent acts, or indebtedness. Slaves in ancient Egypt could be sold, inherited or offered as gifts, but they could sometimes achieve social rank and take other contracts. Abusers of slaves were known to be brought to court.
In the Viking era starting c. 793, the Norse raiders often captured and enslaved weaker peoples they encountered. In the Nordic countries the slaves were called thralls (Old Norse: Þræll).Slavery and Thralldom: The Unfree in Viking Scandinavia The thralls were mostly from Western Europe, among them many Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Celts. There is evidence of German, Baltic, Slavic and south European slaves as well. The slave trade was one of the pillars of Norse commerce during the 6th through 11th centuries.Origin of Vikings: Algeidjuborg trafficking of "valkyries" to Islam The Persian traveller Ibn Rustah described how Swedish Vikings, the Varangians or Rus, terrorized and enslaved the Slavs. The slave raids came to an end when Catholicism became widespread throughout Scandinavia. As in the rest of Catholic Europe, the Scandinavian representatives for the church held that a Christian could not morally own another Christian. However, the moral aspect was not considered binding by church representatives in regards to enslavement of Africans. When slavery resurfaced in the post-Viking era in overseas colonies held by the Scandinavian countries, representatives of the church defended it, arguing, among other things, that Africans lacked "humanity" and therefore were better off as slaves, especially if they were converted.One of the influential representatives of the church expressing this view was the Danish bishop Erik Pontoppidan in 1760, who wrote that, "... since even among the absolutely wildest and coarsest Negro slaves, who seem to have lost all humanity in their own land, there are to be found many examples of such honest and lasting conversion. [Once converted, the slaves] ... neither lie, steal, rebel, nor do anything evil, but become their master\'s most capable and best workers." (Quoted by Selena Axelrod Winsnes in Encounter Images in the Meetings Between Africa and Europe, ed. Mai Palmberg, Nordic Africa Institute, 2001, ISBN 9171064788, p. 39.) The thrall system was finally abolished in the mid-14th century in Scandinavia. Serfdom was never instituted in Norway, Iceland and Sweden.Serfdom -- Encyclopaedia Britannicahttp://www.uib.no/neolatin/HistNote.html A Historical Note] An ordinance of 20 June 1788 abolished villenage in Denmark and completely transformed the much-abused hoveri system.Christian Ditlev Frederik, Count Reventlow Serfdom remained the practice in Swedish Pomerania until July 4, 1806.
Although the thrall system had been abolished, slavery resurfaced again during the 17th century when Denmark-Norway and Sweden established trade posts in Africa, including the minor Swedish and Danish overseas colonies called Swedish Gold Coast and Danish Gold Coast.Wohlgemuth, Lennart (2002). The Nordic Countries and Africa: Old and New Relations. Nordic Africa Institute Scandinavia, ISBN 9171065059. Rawley, James A. and Stephen D. Behrendt (2005). The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History. U of Nebraska Press, ISBN 0803239610, p. 86. In the late 18th century, Denmark-Norway set up slave colonies on the Caribbean islands of Saint Croix, Saint Thomas and Saint JohnMonuments and Sites on St. Croix. The slave-route project, The Norwegian UNESCO Commission: "The Danish-Norwegian kingdom was not a great colonial power. Our only colonies were three islands in the West Indies". and the Swedish King Gustav III established a Swedish slave trade colony on the Caribbean island Saint Barthelemy.McAlinden, Tom (2007). Sweden’s slave trade. Network Europe, 30 March 2007. Retrieved 1 February 2008. In 1803, Denmark-Norway banned export trade in slaves,The \'slave route\' project, Danish-Norwegian Slave Trade, UNESCO. Retrieved 5 February 2008., the first nation to do so, and in 1813 Sweden followed suit.The Atlantic Slave Trade. A Timeline. Durham University Library. Retrieved 5 February 2008. Slavery in the colonies was finally abolished by Sweden (then in union with Norway) in 1847,Historiska Fakta. The Colony Project, 4 August 2007. (In Swedish). Retrieved 1 February 2008. and by Denmark in 1848.Danish-Norwegian Slave Trade. The Norwegian UNESCO Commission. Retrieved 1 February 2008.
Chaos and invasion made the taking of slaves habitual throughout Europe in the early Middle Ages. St. Patrick, himself captured and sold as a slave, protested an attack that enslaved newly baptized Christians in his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. In Carolingian Europe approximately 20% of the entire population consisted of slaves.The slave trade: myths and preconceptions At that time, Europe was weak and disunited, and for more than half a century Magyar bands raided Germany, Great Moravia, Italy, the Byzantine Empire, and lands as far away as Spain. The Magyars looted towns and took captives for labor, ransom, or sale on the slave market.The Magyars of Hungary
Slavery in early medieval Europe was so common that the Roman Catholic Church repeatedly prohibited it—or at least the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands was prohibited at, for example, the Council of Koblenz in 922, the Council of London in 1102, and the Council of Armagh in 1171.Slavery, serfdom, and indenture through the Middle Ages William the Conqueror, too, banned export of English slaves. The early medieval slave trade was mainly to the East: the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim world were the destinations, pagan Central and Eastern Europe, along with the Caucasus and Tartary, were important sources. Viking, Arab, Greek and primarily Jewish merchants (known as Radhanites) were all involved in the slave trade during the Early Middle Ages.Slave trade -- Britannica Concise EncyclopediaJewishEncyclopedia.com - slave-tradeSlavery Encyclopedia of Ukraine
So many Slavs (called Saqaliba in the medieval Arab world ) were enslaved for so many centuries that the very name \'slave\' derived from their name, not only in English, but in other European languages.Historical survey The international slave tradedefinition of slaved
The Mongol invasions and conquests in the 13th century made the situation worse.The Destruction of Kiev The Mongols enslaved skilled individuals, women and children and marched them to Karakorum or Sarai, whence they were sold throughout Eurasia. Many of these slaves were shipped to slave market in Novgorod.William of Rubruck\'s Account of the MongolsLife in 13th Century Novgorod -- Women and Class StructureThe Effects of the Mongol Empire on Russia
Slave commerce during the Late Middle Ages was mainly in the hands of Venetian and Genoese merchants and cartels, who were involved in the slave trade with the Golden Horde. In 1382 the Golden Horde under Khan Tokhtamysh sacked Moscow, burning the city and carrying off thousands of inhabitants as slaves. Between 1414 and 1423, some 10,000 eastern European slaves were sold in Venice.How To Reboot Reality — Chapter 2, Labor Genoese merchants organized the slave trade from the Crimea to Mamluk Egypt. For years the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan routinely made raids on Russian principalities for slaves and to plunder towns. Russian chronicles record about 40 raids of Kazan Khans on the Russian territories in the first half of the 16th century.The Full Collection of the Russian Annals, vol.13, SPb, 1904 In 1521, the combined forces of Crimean Khan Mehmed Giray and his Kazan allies attacked Moscow and captured thousands of slaves.The Tatar Khanate of Crimea - All Empires
In 1441, Haci I Giray declared independance from the Golden Horde and established the Crimean Khanate. For a long time, until the early 18th century, the khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East. In a process called the "harvesting of the steppe", they enslaved many Slavic peasants. About 30 major Tatar raids were recorded into Muscovite territories between 1558-1596.Supply of Slaves In 1571, the Crimean Tatars attacked and sacked Moscow, burning everything but the Kremlin and taking thousands of captives as slaves.Moscow - Historical background In Crimea, about 75% of the population consisted of slaves.Historical survey > Slave societies
Medieval Spain and Portugal were the scene of almost constant warfare between Muslims and Christians. Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus to ravage the Iberian Christian kingdoms, bringing back booty and slaves. In raid against Lisbon, Portugal in 1189, for example, the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, while his governor of Córdoba, in a subsequent attack upon Silves, Portugal in 1191, took 3,000 Christian slaves.Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain: The Order of Merced on the Christian-Islamic Frontier
The Byzantine-Ottoman wars and the Ottoman wars in Europe brought large numbers of Christian slaves into the Islamic world too.Ottoman Dhimmitude After the battle of Lepanto approximately 12,000 Christian galley slaves were freed from the Ottoman Turks.Famous Battles in History The Turks and Christians at Lepanto Christians were also selling Muslim slaves captured in war. The Knights of Malta attacked pirates and Muslim shipping, and their base became a centre for slave trading, selling captured North Africans and Turks. Malta remained a slave market until well into the late 18th century. It required a thousand slaves to equip merely the galleys (ships) of the Order.A medical service for slaves in Malta during the rule of the Order of St. John of JerusalemBrief History of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem
Slavery in Poland was forbidden in the 15th century; in Lithuania, slavery was formally abolished in 1588; they were replaced by the second enserfment. Slavery remained a major institution in Russia until the 1723, when the Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679.Historical survey > Ways of ending slavery
The 15th century Portuguese exploration of the African coast, commonly regarded as the harbinger of European colonialism, also marked the beginnings of the slave trade which was to become a major element of this colonialism until the end of the 18th century. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, granting Afonso V of Portugal the right to reduce any "Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers" to hereditary slavery. This approval of slavery was reaffirmed and extended in his Romanus Pontifex bull of 1455. These papal bulls came to serve as a justification for the subsequent era of slave trade and European colonialism. Although for a short period as in 1462, Pius II declared slavery to be "a great crime".Allard, Paul (1912). "Slavery and Christianity". Catholic Enycyclopedia XIV. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved on 2006-02-04.
The maritime town of Lagos, Portugal, has the dubious distinction of being the location of the first slave market created by Europeans for the sale of imported African slaves - the Mercado de Escravos, opened in 1444.Goodman, Joan E. (2001). A Long and Uncertain Journey: The 27,000 Mile Voyage of Vasco Da Gama. Mikaya Press, ISBN 096504937X.de Oliveira Marques, António Henrique R. (1972). History of Portugal. Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231031599, p. 158-160, 362-370. In 1441, the first slaves were brought to Portugal from northern Mauritania. The well-known Prince Henry the Navigator, major sponsor of the Portuguese African expeditions, received one fifth of the selling price of the slaves imported to Portugal. In the second half of the 16th century, the Crown gave up the monopoly on slave trade and the focus of European trade in African slaves shifted from import to Europe to slave transports directly to tropical colonies in the Americas - in the case of Portugal, especially Brazil.
Unlike Portugal with its colony of Brazil, Spain had to fight against relatively powerful civilizations of the New World. However, the Spanish conquest of the indigenous peoples in the Americas was also facilitated by the spread of diseases (e.g. smallpox) due to lack of biological immunity.David A. Koplow Smallpox The Fight to Eradicate a Global Scourge Natives were used as forced labour (the Spanish employed the pre-Columbian draft system called the mita),U.S. Library of Congress but the diseases caused a labour shortage and so the Spanish colonists were gradually involved in the Atlantic slave trade.
During and after Roman times, the practice of slavery was common in England. Anglo-Saxons continued and expanded their slave system, sometimes in league with Norse traders. Chattel slavery of English Christians was discontinued when William of Normandy conquered England in 1066. According to the Domesday Book census in 1086, 10% of England\'s population was enslaved.Domesday Book Slave The trade in serfs and slaves in England was abolished in 1102. The legal force of the event is actually open to question. The Council of Westminster, a collection of nobles, issued a decree: "Let no one hereafter presume to engage in that nefarious trade in which hitherto in England men were usually sold like brute animals." However, the Council had no legislative powers, and no act of law was valid unless signed by the monarch.[citation needed] and the last form of enforced servitude (villeinage) had disappeared in Britain by the beginning of the 17th century. Slavery resurfaced in that century as a form of punishment against Catholics. As many as 100,000 Irish men, women and children were forcibly taken to the colonies in the British West Indies and British North America as slaves after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.The curse of Cromwell, BBC See also "To Hell Or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing Of Ireland", by Sean O\'Callaghan. In the 17th century, slavery was used as punishment by conquering English Parliament armies against native Catholics in Ireland. Britain would also play a prominent role in both the Atlantic slave trade massification (slavery was a legal institution in all of the 13 American colonies) and the abolition of slavery.
In 1811, the Arthur William Hodge was the first slave owner executed for the murder of a slave in the British West Indies.John Andrew, The Hanging of Arthur Hodge[2], Xlibris, 2000, ISBN 0-7388-1930-1. The assertion is probably correct; there appear to be no other records of any British slave owners being executed for holding slaves, and, given the excitement which the Hodge trial excited, it seems improbable that another execution could have occurred without attracting attention. Slavery itself as an institution in the British West Indies only continued for another 23 years after Hodge\'s death. He though was not, as some have claimed, the first white person to have been lawfully executed for the killing of a slave.Vernon Pickering, A Concise History of the British Virgin Islands, ISBN 10-0934139059, page 48Records indicate at least two earlier incidents. On November 23, 1739, in Williamsburg, Virginia, two white men, Charles Quin and David White, were hanged for the murder of another white man\'s black slave; and on April 21, 1775, the Fredericksburg newspaper, the Virginia Gazette reported that a white man William Pitman had been hanged for the murder of his own black slave.Blacks in Colonial America, p101, Oscar Reiss, McFarland & Company, 1997; Virginia Gazette, April 21 1775, University of Mary Washington Department of Historic Preservation archives
Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.Sailing against slavery. By Jo Loosemore BBC Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.The West African Squadron and slave trade
It became the custom among the Mediterranean powers to sentence condemned criminals to row in the war-galleys of the state (initially only in time of war).The Last Galleys The French Huguenots filled the galleys after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and Camisard rebellion.Huguenots and the Galleys Galley-slaves lived in unsavoury conditions, so even though some sentences prescribed a restricted number of years, most rowers would eventually die, even if they survived shipwreck and slaughter or torture at the hands of enemies or of pirates.French galley slaves of the ancien régime Naval forces often turned \'infidel\' prisoners-of-war into galley-slaves. Several well-known historical figures served time as galley slaves after being captured by the enemy -- the Ottoman corsair and admiral Turgut Reis and the Knights Hospitaller Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette among them.The Great Siege of 1565
In that time second serfdom took place in Eastern Europe during this period (particularly in Austria, Hungary, Prussia, Russia and Poland). Only in 1768 was a law passed in Poland that discontinued the nobility\'s control of the right to life or death of serfs. Serfdom remained the practice on the most part of territory of Russia until February 19, 1861. Some of the Roma people were enslaved over five centuries in Romania until abolition in 1864.Roma Celebrate 150 years of Freedom 2005 Romania
Slavery in the French Republic was abolished on February 4, 1794.
Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi regime created many Arbeitslager (labour camps) in Germany and Eastern Europe. Prisoners in Nazi labor camps were worked to death on short rations and in bad conditions, or killed if they became unable to work. Millions died as a direct result of forced labour under the Nazis. See for instance Eugen Kogon\'s publication The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind ThemThe Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind Them
About 12 million forced laborers, most of whom were Eastern Europeans, were employed in the German war economy inside the Nazi Germany.Final Compensation Pending for Former Nazi Forced LaborersForced Labor at Ford Werke AG during the Second World War More than 2000 German companies profited from slave labor during the Nazi era, including Daimler-Benz, Deutsche Bank, Siemens, Volkswagen, Hoechst, Dresdner Bank, Krupp, Allianz, BASF, Bayer, BMW and Degussa.Comprehensive List Of German Companies That Used Slave Or Forced Labor During World War II ReleasedGerman Companies Adopt Fund For Slave Laborers Under Nazis
Between 1930 and 1960, the Soviet regime created many Lageria (labour camps) in Siberia.Gulag: Understanding the Magnitude of What Happened There were at least 476 separate camp complexes, each one comprising hundreds, even thousands of individual camps.Anne Applebaum -- Inside the Gulag It is estimated that there may have been 5-7 million people in these camps at any one time. In later years the camps also held victims of Stalin’s purges as well as World War II prisoners. It is possible that approximately 10% of prisoners died each year.The National Archives Learning Curve Out of the 91,000 Germans captured alive after the Battle of Stalingrad, only 6,000 survived the Gulag and returned home.German POWs in Allied Hands - World War II Many of these prisoners, however, had died of illness contracted during the siege of Stalingrad and in the forced march into captivity.[Antony Beevor], Stalingrad
Probably the worst of the camp complexes were the three built north of the Arctic circle at Kolyma, Norilsk and Vorkuta.Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps, by Anne ApplebaumGulag Prisoners in Soviet labor camps were worked to death on extreme production quotas, brutality, hunger and harsh elements.Paintings of the Soviet Penal System by Former Prisoner Nilolau Getman. In all, more than 18 million people passed through the Gulag,[citation needed] with a further millions being deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.The Other Killing MachineStalin\'s forgotten victims stuck in the gulag The fatality rate was as high as 80% during the first months in many camps. Immediately after the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, the NKVD massacred about 100,000 prisoners who awaited deportation either to NKVD prisons in Moscow or to the Gulag. Michael McFaul, in his New York Times article of June 11,2003, entitled \'Books of the Times;Camps of Terror, Often Overlooked\' [3], has this to say about the state of contemporary dialogue on Soviet slavery:
Nikolai Getman Moving out.The Jamestown Foundation, Nikolai Getman, The Gulag Collection: Paintings of Nikolai Getman.
It should now be known to all serious scholars that the camps began under Lenin and not Stalin. It should be recognized by all that people were sent to the camps not because of what they did, but because of who they were. Some may be surprised to learn about the economic function that the camps were designed to perform. Under Stalin, the camps were simply a crueler but equally inefficient way to exploit labor in the cause of building socialism than the one practiced outside the camps in the Soviet Union. Yet, even this economic role of the camps has been exposed before. What is remarkable is that the facts about this monstrous system so well documented in Ms. Applebaum\'s book are still so poorly known and even, by some, contested. For decades, academic historians have gravitated away from event-focused history and toward social history. Yet, the social history of the gulag somehow has escaped notice. Compared with the volumes and volumes written about the Holocaust, the literature on the gulag is thin.
(The article draws attention to Anne Applebaum\'s Pulitzer Prize winning text GULAG : A History [4])
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the impoverished former Eastern bloc countries such as Albania, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have been identified as major trafficking source countries for women and children.Eastern Europe Exports Flesh to the EU Young women and girls are often lured to wealthier countries by the promises of money and work and then reduced to sexual slavery.Crime gangs \'expand sex slavery into shires\' It is estimated that 2/3 of women trafficked for prostitution worldwide annually come from Eastern Europe, three-quarters have never worked as prostitutes before.Eastern Europe - Coalition Against Trafficking of WomenA modern slave\'s brutal odyssey The major destinations are Western Europe (Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, UK, Greece), the Middle East (Turkey, Israel, the United Arab Emirates), Asia, Russia and the United States.Moldova: Lower prices behind sex slavery boom and child prostitutionThe Russian Mafia in Asia
An estimated 500,000 women from Central and Eastern Europe are working in prostitution in the EU alone.For East Europe’s Women, a Rude Awakening It is estimated that half million Ukrainian women were trafficked abroad since 1991 (80% of all unemployed in Ukraine are women).The "Natasha" Trade - The Transnational Shadow Market of Trafficking in WomenPoverty, crime and migration are acute issues as Eastern European cities continue to grow Russia is a major source of women trafficked globally for the purpose of sexual exploitation, Russian women are in prostitution in over 50 countries.Russia: With No Jobs At Home, Women Fall Victim To TraffickingCourt acquits brothers in assault and detention casePolice bring home 3 sex slaves from China In poverty-stricken Moldova, where the unemployment rate for women ranges as high as 68% and one-third of the workforce live and work abroad, experts estimate that since the collapse of the Soviet Union between 200,000 and 400,000 women have been sold into prostitution abroad — perhaps up to 10% of the female population.Sold as a sex slave in EuropeJana Costachi, "Preventing Victimization in Moldova" Global Issues, June 2003
For Muslim views on slavery, see Islam and slavery.
13th century slave market in Yemen
Historians say the Arab slave trade began in the 7th century and lasted more than millennium.Islam and Slavery"Know about Islamic Slavery in Africa" The Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade is thought to have originated with trans-Saharan slavery.Battuta\'s Trip: Journey to West Africa (1351 - 1353)Slavery in the Sahara Arab, Indian, and Oriental traders were involved in the capture and transport of slaves northward across the Sahara desert and the Indian Ocean region into Arabia and the Middle East, Persia, and the Indian subcontinent.A Legacy Hidden in Plain Sight (washingtonpost.com)"Slavery in Arabia". "Owen \'Alik Shahadah". The slave trade from East Africa to Arabia was dominated by Arab and African traders in the coastal cities of Zanzibar, Dar Es Salaam and Mombasa."Slavery in Arabia". "Owen \'Alik Shahadah".Slaves And Slave Trading In Shi\'i Iran, AD 1500-1900 The Moors, starting in the 8th century, raided coastal areas of the Mediterranean, and became known as the Barbary pirates.
Male slaves were employed as servants, soldiers, or laborers, while female slaves were traded to Middle Eastern countries and kingdoms by Arab, Indian, or Oriental traders, some as domestic servants, others as sex slaves.Islam and SlaveryBattuta\'s Trip: Anatolia (Turkey) 1330 - 1331Chaman Andam, slavery in early 20th century Iran Some historians estimate that between 11 and 17 million slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert from 650 to 1900 AD.Focus on the slave tradeThe Unknown Slavery: In the Muslim world, that is -- and it\'s not over
Racist opinions occurred in the works of some Persian and Arab-Muslim historians and geographers: so in the 14th century CE, the Tunisian Ibn Khaldun could write: - :"...the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals..." [5]. The Muqaddimah, Translated by F. RosenthalWest Asian views on black Africans during the medieval era In the same period, the Egyptian Al-Abshibi (1388-1446) wrote, "It is said that when the [black] slave is sated, he fornicates, when he is hungry, he steals."Lewis, Bernard (2002). Race and Slavery in the Middle East. Oxford University Press, 93. ISBN 0195053265.
In 1400 Timur the Lame invaded Armenia and Georgia. More than 60,000 people from the Caucasus were captured as slaves, and many districts of Armenia were depopulated.The Turco-Mongol Invasions
From 1569 the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth suffered a series of Tatar invasions, the goal of which was to loot, pillage and capture slaves into jasyr. The borderland area to the south-east was in a state of semi-permanent warfare until the 18th century. Some researchers estimate that altogether more than 3 million people, predominantly Ukrainians but also Circassians, Russians, Belarusians and Poles, were captured and enslaved during the time of the Crimean Khanate.Soldier KhanThe living legacy of jihad slavery Russian conquest of the Crimea led to the abolition of slavery by the 1780s.Slave trade in the early modern Crimea from the perspective of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish sources
Slavery was an important part of Ottoman society. In Istanbul, about 1/5 of the population consisted of slaves.Historical survey > Slave societies As late as 1908 women slaves were still sold in the Ottoman Empire.Islam and slavery: Sexual slavery In the middle of the 14th century, Murad I built his own personal slave army called the Kapıkulu. The new force was based on the sultan\'s right to a fifth of the war booty, which he interpreted to include captives taken in battle. The captive slaves were converted to Islam and trained in the sultan\'s personal service. In the devşirme (translated "blood tax" or "child collection"), young Christian boys from the Balkans were taken away from their homes and families, converted to Islam and enlisted into special soldier classes of the Ottoman army. These soldier classes were named Janissaries, the most famous branch of the Kapıkulu. The Janissaries eventually became a decisive factor in the Ottoman invasions of Europe.Janissary Most of the military commanders of the Ottoman forces, imperial administrators and de facto rulers of the Ottoman Empire, such as Pargalı İbrahim Pasha and Sokollu Mehmet Paşa, were recruited in this way.Lewis. Race and Slavery in the Middle EastThe Turks: History and Culture By 1609 the Sultan\'s Kapıkulu forces increased to about 100,000.In the Service of the State and Military Class
Mamluks were a slave soldiers who converted to Islam and served the Muslim caliphs and the Ayyubid sultans during the Middle Ages. The first mamluks served the Abbasid caliphs in 9th century Baghdad. Over time they became a powerful military caste, and on more than one occasion they seized power for themselves, for example, ruling Egypt in the from 1250-1517. From 1250 Egypt had been ruled by the Bahri dynasty of Kipchak Turk origin. White slaves from the Caucasus served in the army and formed an elite corp of troops eventually revolting in Egypt to form the Burgi dynasty. Mamluks were mainly responsible for the expulsion of the Crusaders from Palestine and preventing the Mongol Ilkhanate of Persia and Iraq from entering Egypt.The Mamluk (Slave) Dynasty (Timeline)
The Moroccan Sultan Moulay Ismail "the Bloodthirsty" (1672-1727) raised a corps of 150,000 black slaves, called his Black Guard, who coerced the country into submission.Lewis. Race and Slavery in the Middle East. Oxford Univ Press 1994.
Nautical traders from the United States became targets, and frequent victims, of the Barbary pirates, as soon as that nation began trading with Europe and refused to pay the required tribute to the North African states.Richard Leiby, Terrorists by Another Name: The Barbary Pirates, The Washington Post, October 15 2001British Slaves on the Barbary Coast By Professor Rees Davies, BBC
In response to the Hazara uprising of 1892, the Afghan Emir Abdur Rahman declared a "Jihad" against the Shiites. The large army defeated the rebellion at its center, in Oruzgan, by 1892 and the local population was severely massacred. According to S. A. Mousavi, "thousands of Hazara men, women, and children were sold as slaves in the markets of Kabul and Qandahar, while numerous towers of human heads were made from the defeated rebels as a warning to others who might challenge the rule of the Amir". Until the 20th century, some Hazaras were still kept as slaves by the Pashtuns; although Amanullah Khan banned slavery in Afghanistan during his reign,Afghan Constitution: 1923 the tradition carried on unofficially for many more years.Afghan History: kite flying, kite running and kite banning By Mir Hekmatullah Sadat
The Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade continued into the early 1900s,World History: 700 to 1516 and by some accounts continues to this day. As recently as the 1950s, Saudi Arabia had an estimated 450,000 slaves, 20% of the population.Slavery in Islam£400 for a Slave It is estimated that as many as 200,000 children and women have been taken into slavery in Sudan during the Second Sudanese Civil War.War and Genocide in SudanThe Lost Children of Sudan In Mauritania it is estimated that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are currently enslaved, many of them used as bonded labour.The Abolition season on BBC World Service Slavery in Mauritania was finally criminalized in August 2007.Mauritanian MPs pass slavery law
The Arab trade in slaves continued into the 20th century. Written travelogues and other historical works are replete with references to slaves owned by wealthy traders, nobility and heads of state in the Arabian Peninsula well into the 1920s. Slave owning and slave-like working conditions have been documented up to and including the present, in countries of the Middle East. Though the subject is considered taboo in the affected regions, a leading Saudi government cleric and author of the country\'s religious curriculum has called for the outright re-legalization of slaveryhttp://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35518http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/SaudiArabia.htm.
Children as young as two years old are used for slavery as child camel jockeys across the Arab countries of the Middle East. Although strict laws have been introduced recently in Qatar and UAE, thanks to better awareness of the issue and lobbying by human rights organisations such as the Ansar Burney Trust, the use of children still continues in outlying areas and during secret night-time races.
Many of the Iraqi women fleeing the Iraq War are turning to prostitution, others are trafficked abroad, to countries like Syria, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Iran.Iraqi sex slaves recount ordeals In Syria alone, an estimated 50,000 Iraqi refugee girls and women, many of them widows, are forced into prostitution.\'50,000 Iraqi refugees\' forced into prostitution Cheap Iraqi prostitutes have helped to make Syria a popular destination for sex tourists. The clients come from wealthier countries in the Middle East - many are Saudi men.Iraqi refugees forced into prostitution High prices are offered for virgins.Desperate Iraqi Refugees Turn to Sex Trade in Syria
In most African societies, there was very little difference between the free peasants and the feudal vassal peasants. Vassals of the Songhay Muslim Empire were used primarily in agriculture; they paid tribute to their masters in crop and service but they were slightly restricted in custom and convenience. These people were more an occupational caste, as their bondage was relative. In the Kanem Bornu Empire, vassals were three classes beneath the nobles. Marriage between captor and captive was far from rare, blurring the anticipated roles."Slavery In Arabia". "Owen \'Alik Shahadah"..
French historian Fernand Braudel noted that slavery was endemic in Africa and part of the structure of everyday life. "Slavery came in different disguises in different societies: there were court slaves, slaves incorporated into princely armies, domestic and household slaves, slaves working on the land, in industry, as couriers and intermediaries, even as traders" (Braudel 1984 p. 435). During the 16th century, Europe began to outpace the Arab world in the export traffic, with its slave traffic from Africa to the Americas. The Dutch imported slaves from Asia into their colony in South Africa. Later, the United Kingdom, which held vast colonial territories on the African continent (including southern Africa), made the practice of slavery illegal throughout its empire. The end of the slave trade and the decline of slavery was imposed upon Africa by its European conquerors.
The nature of the slave societies differed greatly across the continent. There were large plantations worked by slaves in Egypt, the Sudan and Zanzibar, but this was not a typical use of slaves in Africa as a whole. In most African slave societies, slaves were protected and incorporated into the slave-owning family.[citation needed]
In Senegambia, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved. In early Islamic states of the western Sudan, including Ghana (750-1076), Mali (1235–1645), Segou (1712–1861), and Songhai (1275-1591), about a third of the population were slaves. In Sierra Leone in the 19th century about half of the population consisted of slaves. In the 19th century at least half the population was enslaved among the Duala of the Cameroon, the Igbo and other peoples of the lower Niger, the Kongo, and the Kasanje kingdom and Chokwe of Angola. Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third of the population consisted of slaves. The population of the Kanem was about a third-slave. It was perhaps 40% in Bornu (1396–1893). Between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of slaves. The population of the Sokoto caliphate formed by Hausas in the northern Nigeria and Cameroon was half-slave in the 19th century. It is estimated that up to 90% of the population of Arab-Swahili Zanzibar was enslaved. Roughly half the population of Madagascar was enslaved.Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica\'s Guide to Black HistorySlow Death for Slavery - Cambridge University PressDigital History Slavery Fact SheetsTanzania - Stone Town of Zanzibar18th and Early 19th Centuries. The Encyclopedia of World HistoryFulani slave-raidsCentral African Republic: History
The Anti-Slavery Society estimated that there were 2,000,000 slaves in the early 1930s Ethiopia, out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million.Twentieth Century Solutions of the Abolition of Slavery Slavery continued in Ethiopia until the brief Second Italo-Abyssinian War in October 1935, when was abolished by order of the Italian occupying forces.CJO - Abstract - Trading in slaves in Ethiopia, 1897–1938 In response to pressure by Western Allies of World War II Ethiopia officially abolished slavery and serfdom after regaining its independance in 1942. On August 26, 1942 Haile Selassie issued a proclamation outlawing slavery.EthiopiaChronology of slavery
Elikia M’bokolo, April 1998, Le Monde diplomatique. Quote:"The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth)." He continues: "Four million slaves exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean"The impact of the slave trade on Africa
The Slave Market (c. 1884), painting by
