Swedish slave trade

Part of a series on
Forced labour and slavery
Contemporary Child Labour Child soldiers Conscription Debt Forced marriage Bride buying Child marriage Wife selling Forced prostitution Human trafficking Involuntary servitude Peonage Penal labour Contemporary Africa 21st-century jihadism Sexual slavery Wage slavery
Historical Antiquity Egypt Babylonia Greece Rome Medieval Europe Ancillae Black Sea slave trade Byzantine Empire Kholop Prague slave trade Serfs History In Russia Emancipation Thrall Genoese slave trade Venetian slave trade Balkan slave trade Muslim world Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Slavery in al-Andalus ‎ Baqt Contract of manumission Bukhara slave trade Crimean slave trade Khazar slave trade Khivan slave trade Ottoman Empire Avret Pazarları Barbary Coast slave trade pirates Sack of Baltimore Slave raid of Suðuroy Turkish Abductions Concubinage history Ma malakat aymanukum Avret Pazarları Harem Abbasid harem Ottoman Imperial Harem Safavid imperial harem Qajar harem Jarya/Cariye Odalisque Qiyan Umm al-walad Circassian slave trade Saqaliba Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Volga Bulgarian slave trade 21st century Atlantic slave trade Bristol Brazil Database Dutch Middle Passage Nantes New France Panyarring Spanish Empire Slave Coast Thirteen colonies Topics and practice Conscription Ghilman Mamluk Devshirme Blackbirding Coolie Corvée labour Field slaves in the United States Treatment House slaves Saqaliba Slave market Slave raiding Child soldiers White slavery Naval Galley slave Impressment Pirates Shanghaiing Slave ship
By country or region Sub-Saharan Africa Contemporary Africa Trans-Saharan slave trade Red Sea slave trade Indian Ocean slave trade Zanzibar slave trade Angola Chad Comoros Ethiopia Mali Mauritania Niger Nigeria Seychelles Somalia Somali slave trade South Africa Sudan Zanzibar North and South America Pre-Columbian America Aztec Americas indigenous U.S. Natives United States Field slaves female Contemporary maps partus prison labour Slave codes Treatment interregional Human trafficking The Bahamas Canada Caribbean Barbados British Virgin Islands Trinidad Code Noir Latin America Brazil Lei Áurea Colombia Cuba Haiti revolt Restavek (Encomienda) Puerto Rico East, Southeast, and South Asia Human trafficking in Southeast Asia Bhutan Brunei China Booi Aha Laogai penal system India Debt bondage Chukri System Indonesia Japan comfort women Korea Kwalliso Malaysia Maldives Slavery in the Mongol Empire Thailand Yankee princess Vietnam Australia and Oceania Australia Human trafficking Blackbirding Slave raiding in Easter Island Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea Blackbirding in Polynesia Europe and North Asia Sex trafficking in Europe United Kingdom Penal Labour Slavery Denmark Dutch Republic Germany in World War II Malta Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Spain Sweden North Africa and West Asia Afghanistan Algeria Bahrain Egypt Human trafficking in the Middle East Iran Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Palestine Saudi Arabia Syria Tunisia Qatar Yemen United Arab Emirates
Religion Bible Christianity Catholicism Mormonism Islam Judaism Baháʼí Faith
Opposition and resistance Abolitionism U.K. U.S. Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90 Temporary Slavery Commission 1926 Slavery Convention Committee of Experts on Slavery Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery Abolitionists Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention Anti-Slavery International Blockade of Africa U.K. U.S. Colonization Liberia Sierra Leone Compensated emancipation Freedman Manumission Freedom suit Slave Power Underground Railroad songs Slave rebellion Slave Trade Acts International law Third Servile War 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa]
Related Common law Indentured servitude Forced labour Fugitive slaves laws convention Great Dismal Swamp maroons List of slaves owners last survivors of American slavery List of slavery-related memorials and museums Slave marriages in the United States Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave catcher Slave patrol Slave Route Project breeding court cases Washington Jefferson J.Q. Adams Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau Iron bit Emancipation Day
v t e

The Swedish slave trade mainly occurred in the early history of Sweden when the trade of thralls (Old Norse: þræll) was one of the pillars of the Norse economy. During the raids, the Vikings often captured and enslaved militarily weaker peoples they encountered, but took the most slaves in raids of the British Isles, and in Eastern Europe. This slave trade lasted from the 8th through the 11th centuries. Slavery itself was abolished in Sweden in 1335. A smaller trade of African slaves happened during the 17th and 18th centuries,^[1] around the time Swedish overseas colonies were established in North America (New Sweden; 1638–1655) and in Africa (lasting between 1650 and 1663). Similarly to other European powers, slavery was banned in the motherland while being legal in the colonies. Consequently, slavery remained legal on the sole Swedish Caribbean colony of Saint Barthélemy from 1784 until 1847.

The slaves from Western Europe during the Viking era were mainly Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Celts. Many Irish slaves were used in expeditions for the colonization of Iceland.^[2] The Norse also took Baltic, Slavic and Latin slaves. The Vikings kept some slaves as servants and sold most captives in the Byzantine or Islamic markets. Vikings navigated the "Highway of the Slaves" through the Aegean Sea and into Black Sea ports first established by Archaic Greeks, shoreline crossroads for human trafficking.^[3] The Persian traveler Ibn Rustah described how Vikings, the Varangians or Rus, terrorized and enslaved the Slavs taken in their raids along the Volga River. These slaves were trafficked to the Middle East via the Bukhara slave trade. Thralldom was outlawed in 1335 by Magnus IV of Sweden for thralls "born by Christian parents" in Västergötland and Värend, being the last parts where it had remained legal.^[4] This however, was only applicable within the borders of Sweden, which opened up for later slave trade in the colonies. Similarly to other European countries, slavery was later to be revived in Swedish territories outside of the European motherland.

In the 17th century, Swedish citizens become involved with the Atlantic slave trade. Between 1784 and 1878, Sweden maintained possession of a colony in the Caribbean. The Swedish colony of Saint Barthélemy functioned as a duty-free port and became a major destination center for slave ships. Slaves were brought in tax free by foreign vessels and the Swedish Crown made a profit by collecting an export tax when slaves were shipped out. Sweden was also a major supplier of iron for chains used in the slave trade.^[5] Slavery was legislated in Saint-Barthélemy under the Ordinance concerning the Police of Slaves and free Coloured People^[6] dated 30 July 1787, original^[7] in French dated 30 June 1787.

In the early 19th century, Sweden signed treaties with the United Kingdom^[8][9] and France to abolish the slave trade.^[10] In 1847, slavery was abolished in all parts of Sweden by including her colony, on the basis of a decision taken in 1846.^[11] The last legally owned slaves in the Swedish colony of Saint-Barthélemy were bought and freed by the Swedish state on 9 October 1847.^[12]