Barbary slave trade

The term Barbary slave trade refers to slave trade that occurred in the Mediterranean. The destination often was the Ottoman Barbary states. These states were mostly independent. The slaves were from Europe. Pirates captured them in slave raids on ships, and in towns along the coast. Slaves came from Italy, the Netherlands, Ireland and the southwest of Britain. Sometimes they also came from Iceland or the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean was the scene of (much or) intense piracy.^[1] As late as the 18th century, piracy continued to be a "consistent threat to maritime traffic in the Aegean".^[2]

Robert Davis, author of Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters, estimates that slave traders from Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli enslaved 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans in North Africa, from the beginning of the 16th century to the middle of the 18th century.^[3] He assumes the number of European slaves captured by Barbary pirates remained roughly constant for a 250-year period.^[4]

1. ↑ Bradford, Ernle (1968). Sultan's Admiral. the Life of Barbarossa (First ed.). Harcourt Brace World.
2. ↑ Ginio, Eyal (2001). "Piracy and Redemption in the Aegean Sea during the First Half of the Eighteenth Century". Turcica. 33: 135–147. doi:10.2143/TURC.33.0.484. consistent threat to maritime traffic in the Aegean
3. ↑ Davis, Robert C. (2003). Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 23. ISBN 978-0333719664.
4. ↑ Carroll, Rory (11 Mar 2004). "New book reopens old arguments about slave raids on Europe". the Guardian. Retrieved 26 Sep 2023.