======================================================================
= White_slavery =
======================================================================
Introduction
======================================================================
White slavery (also white slave trade or white slave trafficking)
refers to the enslavement of any of the world's European ethnic groups
throughout human history, whether perpetrated by non-Europeans or by
other Europeans. Slavery in ancient Rome was frequently dependent on a
person's socio-economic status and national affiliation, and thus
included European slaves. It was also common for European people to be
enslaved and traded in the Muslim world; European women, in
particular, were highly sought-after to be concubines in the harems of
many Muslim rulers. Examples of such slavery conducted in Islamic
empires include the Trans-Saharan slave trade, the Barbary slave
trade, the Ottoman slave trade, and the Black Sea slave trade, among
others.
Many different types of white people were enslaved. On the European
continent under feudalism, there were various forms of status applying
to people (such as serf, bordar, villein, vagabond, and slave) who
were indentured or forced to labour without pay.
During the Arab slave trade, Europeans were among those traded by the
Arabs. The term 'Saqaliba' () was often used in medieval Arabic
sources to refer specifically to Slavs being traded by the Arabs, but
it could also refer more broadly to Central, Southern, and Eastern
Europeans who were also traded by the Arabs, as well as all European
slaves in some Muslim-controlled regions like Spain, including those
abducted from raids on Spanish Christian kingdoms. During the era of
the Fatimid Caliphate (909-1171), the majority of slaves were
Europeans taken from European coasts and during conflicts. Similarly,
the Ottoman slave trade that included European captives was often
fueled by raids into European territories or were taken as children in
the form of a blood tax from the families of citizens of conquered
territories to serve the empire for a variety of functions. In the
mid-19th century, the term 'white slavery' was used to describe the
Christian slaves that were sold into the Barbary slave trade in North
Africa.
History
======================================================================
The phrase "white slavery" was used by Charles Sumner in 1847 to
describe the slavery of Christians throughout the Barbary States and
primarily in Algiers, the capital of Ottoman Algeria. It also
encompassed many forms of slavery, including the European concubines
('Cariye') often found in Turkish harems.
The term was also used by Clifford G. Roe from the beginning of the
twentieth century to campaign against the forced prostitution and
sexual slavery of girls who worked in Chicago brothels. Similarly,
countries of Europe signed in Paris in 1904 an International Agreement
for the suppression of the White Slave Traffic aimed at combating the
sale of women who were forced into prostitution in the countries of
continental Europe.
Slavic slaves
===============
The Volga trade route was established by the Varangians (Vikings) who
settled in Northwestern Russia in the early 9th century. About 10 km
south of the Volkhov River entry into Lake Ladoga, they established a
settlement called Ladoga (Old Norse: 'Aldeigjuborg'). It connected
Northern Europe and Northwestern Russia with the Caspian Sea, via the
Volga River. The Rus used this route to trade with Muslim countries on
the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, sometimes penetrating as far
as Baghdad. The route functioned concurrently with the Dnieper trade
route, better known as the trade route from the Varangians to the
Greeks, and lost its importance in the 11th century.
'Saqaliba' originally was used to denote Slavic people, however later
it came to denote all European slaves in some Muslim regions like
Spain including those abducted from raids on Christian kingdoms of
Spain. The Franks started buying slaves from the Slavs and Avar
Khaganate while Muslims also came across slaves in the form of
mercenaries serving the Byzantine Empire and settlers in addition to
among the Khazars. Most Slavic slaves were imported to the Muslim
world through the border between Christian and Islamic kingdoms where
castration centres were also located instead of the direct route. From
there they were sent into Islamic Spain and other Muslim-ruled regions
especially North Africa. The saqaliba gained popularity in Umayyad
Spain especially as warriors. After the collapse of the Umayyads, they
also came to rule over many of the taifas. With the conversion of
Eastern Europe, the trade declined and there isn't much textual
information on saqaliba after 11th century.
Central Europe was the most favoured destination for importation of
slaves alongside Central Asia and Bilad as-Sudan, though slaves from
Northwestern Europe were also valued. This slave trade was controlled
mostly by European slave traders. France and Venice were the routes
used to send Slavic slaves to Muslim lands and Prague served as a
major centre for castration of Slavic captives. The Emirate of Bari
also served as an important port for this trade. Due to the Byzantine
Empire and Venice blocking Arab merchants from European ports, they
later started importing in slaves from the Caucasus and the Caspian
Sea.
The 'Saqaliba' were also imported as eunuchs and concubines to Muslim
states. The slavery of eunuchs in the Muslim world however was
expensive and they thus were given as gifts by rulers. The 'Saqaliba'
eunuchs were prominent at the court of Aghlabids and later Fatimids
who imported them from Spain. The Fatimids also used other 'Saqaliba'
slaves for military purposes.
Crimean Khanate
=================
In the time of the Crimean Khanate, Crimeans engaged in frequent raids
into the Danubian principalities, Poland-Lithuania, and Muscovy. For
each captive, the khan received a fixed share ('savğa') of 10 percent
or 20 percent. The campaigns by Crimean forces categorize into
'sefers', declared military operations led by the khans themselves,
and 'çapuls', raids undertaken by groups of noblemen, sometimes
illegally because they contravened treaties concluded by the khans
with neighbouring rulers. For a long time, until the early 18th
century, the khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman
Empire and the Middle East. Caffa was one of the best known and
significant trading ports and slave markets. Crimean Tatar raiders
enslaved between 1 and 2 million slaves from Russia and
Poland-Lithuania over the period 1500-1700. Caffa (city on Crimean
peninsula) was one of the best known and significant trading ports and
slave markets. In 1769, a last major Tatar raid resulted in the
capture of 20,000 Russian and Ruthenian slaves.
Barbary slave trade
=====================
Slave markets flourished on the Barbary Coast of North Africa, in what
is modern-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and western Libya, between
the 15th and middle of the 19th century.
These markets prospered while the states were nominally under Ottoman
suzerainty, though, in reality, they were mostly autonomous. The North
African slave markets traded in European slaves which were acquired by
Barbary pirates in slave raids on ships and by raids on coastal towns
from Italy to Spain, Portugal, France, England, the Netherlands, and
as far afield as the Turkish Abductions in Iceland. Men, women, and
children were captured to such a devastating extent that vast numbers
of sea coast towns were abandoned.
According to Robert Davis, between 1 million and 1.25 million
Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold as slaves in North
Africa and Ottoman Empire between the 15th and 19th centuries.
However, to extrapolate his numbers, Davis assumes the number of
European slaves captured by Barbary pirates was constant for a
250-year period, stating:
Davis's numbers have been challenged by other historians, such as
David Earle, who cautions that the true picture of European slaves is
clouded by the fact the corsairs also seized non-Christian whites from
eastern Europe and black people from west Africa. A second book by
Davis, 'Holy War and Human Bondage: Tales of Christian-Muslim Slavery
in the Early-Modern Mediterranean', widened its focus to related
slavery.
It is also worth noting that there were wide fluctuations from year to
year, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, and also given the
fact that, prior to the 1840s, there are no consistent records. Middle
East expert John Wright cautions that modern estimates are based on
back-calculations from human observation.
Such observations, across the late 1500s and early 1600s observers,
account for around 35,000 European Christian slaves held throughout
this period on the Barbary Coast, across Tripoli and Tunis, but mostly
in Algiers. The majority were sailors (particularly those who were
English), taken with their ships, but others were fishermen and
coastal villagers. However, most of these captives were people from
lands close to Africa, particularly Spain and Italy.
From bases on the Barbary Coast of North Africa, the Barbary pirates
raided ships traveling through the Mediterranean and along the
northern and western coasts of Africa, plundering their cargo and
enslaving the people they captured. From at least 1500, the pirates
also conducted raids along seaside towns of Italy, Spain, France,
England, the Netherlands and as far away as Iceland, capturing men,
women and children. On some occasions, settlements such as Baltimore,
Ireland, were abandoned following the raid, only being resettled many
years later. Between 1609 and 1616, England alone had 466 merchant
ships lost to Barbary pirates.
While Barbary corsairs looted the cargo of ships they captured, their
primary goal was to capture people for sale as slaves or for ransom.
Those who had family or friends who might ransom them were held
captive, but not obliged to work; the most famous of these was the
author Miguel de Cervantes, who was held for almost five years. Others
were sold into various types of servitude. Attractive women or boys
could be used as sex slaves. Captives who converted to Islam were
generally freed, since enslavement of Muslims was prohibited; but this
meant that they could never return to their native countries. Moroccan
Sultan Moulay Ismail Ben Sharif controlled a fleet of corsairs based
at Salé-le-Vieux and Salé-le-Neuf (now Rabat), which supplied him with
Christian slaves and weapons through their raids in the Mediterranean
and all the way to the Black Sea. Moulay Ismail was nicknamed the
'bloody king' by the Europeans due to his extreme cruelty and exaction
of summary justice upon his Christian slaves. He is also known in his
native country as the "Warrior King".
16th- and 17th-century customs statistics suggest that Istanbul's
additional slave import from the Black Sea may have totaled around 2.5
million from 1450 to 1700. The markets declined after the loss of the
Barbary Wars and ended in the 1830s, when the region was conquered by
France.
Christian slavery in Muslim Iberia
====================================
During the Al-Andalus (also known as Islamic Iberia), the Moors
controlled much of the peninsula.
Muslim Spain imported Christian slaves from the 8th century until the
Reconquista in the late 15th century. The slaves were exported from
the Christian region of Spain, as well as from Eastern Europe,
sparking significant reaction from many in Christian Spain and many
Christians still living in Muslim Spain. Soon after, Muslims were
successful, taking 30,000 Christian captives from Spain. In the eighth
century, slavery lasted longer due to "frequent cross-border
skirmishes, interspersed between periods of major campaigns". By the
tenth century, in the eastern Mediterranean Byzantine, Christians were
captured by Muslims. Many of the raids designed by Muslims were
created for a fast capture of prisoners. Therefore, Muslims restricted
the control in order to keep captives from fleeing. The Iberian
peninsula served as a base for further exports of slaves into other
Muslim regions in Northern Africa.
Ottoman slave trade
=====================
Slavery was a legal and a significant part of the Ottoman Empire's
economy and society. The main sources of white slaves were Ottoman
wars into Europe and organized enslavement expeditions in Eastern
Europe, Southern Europe, the Balkans, Circassia and Georgia in the
Caucasus. It has been reported that the selling price of slaves fell
after large military operations. Enslavement of Europeans was banned
in the early 19th century, while enslavement of other groups was
permitted.
Even after several measures to ban slavery in the late 19th century,
the practice continued largely unabated into the early 20th century.
As late as 1908, female slaves were still sold in the Ottoman Empire.
Sexual slavery was a central part of the Ottoman slave system
throughout the history of the institution.
Nafisa al-Bayda, meaning "Nafisa the White-skinned", was a Circassian
or Georgian woman who was enslaved and became the "most famous Mamluk
woman in 18th-century Egypt", being a wife of Mamluk leaders of Egypt
Ali Bey al-Kabir and Murad Bey.
Spanish slaves in Araucanía
=============================
In the Arauco War (1550-1662), a long-running conflict between Spanish
and Mapuches in Chile, both sides engaged in slavery of the enemy
population, among other atrocities. Much like the Spanish had captured
Mapuche people, the Mapuches had also captured Spaniards, often women,
and traded their ownership among them. Indeed, with the Destruction of
the Seven Cities (1599-1604) Mapuches are reported to have taken 500
Spanish women captive, holding them as slaves. It was not uncommon for
captive Spanish women to have changed owner several times. As late as
in the 1850s alleged shipwreck survivor Elisa Bravo was said to be
living as wife to a Mapuche cacique, in what is described as the most
brutal forced coexistence resulting in children of "mixed blood". A
report dating from 1863 said that her captors, fearing vengeance from
Spaniards, sold her to the warlord Calfucurá in Puelmapu for a hundred
mares, but that she had died after three years.
Slavery in ancient Rome
=========================
In the Roman Republic and later Roman Empire, slaves accounted for
most of the means of industrial output in Roman commerce. Slaves were
drawn from all over Europe and the Mediterranean, including Gaul,
Hispania, North Africa, Syria, Germania, Britannia, the Balkans, and
Greece. Generally, slaves in Italy were indigenous Italians, with a
minority of foreigners (including both slaves and freedmen) born
outside of Italy estimated at 5% of the total in the capital, where
their number was largest, at its peak.
'Damnati in metallum' ("those condemned to the mine") were convicts
who lost their freedom as citizens ('libertas'), forfeited their
property ('bona') to the state, and became 'servi poenae', slaves as a
legal penalty. Their status under the law was different from that of
other slaves; they could not buy their freedom, be sold, or be set
free. They were expected to live and die in the mines. Imperial slaves
and freedmen (the 'familia Caesaris)' worked in mine administration
and management. In the Late Republic, about half the gladiators who
fought in Roman arenas were slaves, though the most skilled were often
free volunteers.
The slaves imported into Italy were native Europeans, and very few of
them were from outside Europe. This has been confirmed by biochemical
analysis of 166 skeletons from three imperial-era cemeteries in the
vicinity of Rome (where the bulk of the slaves lived), which shows
that only one individual came from outside of Europe (North Africa),
and another two possibly did, but results are inconclusive. In the
rest of the Italian peninsula, the fraction of non-European slaves was
much lower than that.
Slavery under Islamic rule
============================
The "pençik" or "penç-yek" tax, meaning "one fifth", was a taxation
based on a verse of the Quran; whereby one fifth of the spoils of war
belonged to God, to Muhammad and his family, to orphans, to those in
need and to travelers. This eventually included slaves, and war
captives were given to soldiers and officers to help motivate their
participation in wars.
Christians and Jews, known as People of the Book in Islam, were
considered 'dhimmis' in territories under Muslim rule, a status of
second-class citizens that were afforded limited freedoms, legal
protections, personal safety, and were allowed to "practice their
religion, subject to certain conditions, and to enjoy a measure of
communal autonomy" in return for paying the 'jizya' and 'kharaj'
taxes. If a dhimmi broke his agreement and left Muslim territory for
enemy land, he was liable to be enslaved - unless the dhimmi had left
Muslim territory because he suffered injustice there.
Dhimmis were protected persons who could not be enslaved unless they
violated the terms of protection. Such violations normally included
rebellion or treason; according to some authorities this could also
include failure to pay due taxes. Failure to pay tax could also result
in imprisonment.
The Devshirme was a blood tax largely imposed in the Balkans and
Anatolia in which the Ottoman Empire sent military to collect
Christian boys between the ages of 8 and 18, who were taken from their
families and raised to serve the empire. The tax was imposed by Murad
I in the mid 1300s and lasted until the reign of Ahmet III in the
early 1700s. From the mid to late 14th, through early 18th centuries,
the devşirme-janissary system enslaved an estimated 500,000 to one
million non-Muslim adolescent males. These boys would attain a great
education and high social standing after their training and forced
conversion to Islam. Basilike Papoulia wrote that "the devsirme was
the 'forcible removal', in the form of a tribute, of children of the
Christian subjects from their ethnic, religious and cultural
environment and their transportation into the Turkish-Islamic
environment with the aim of employing them in the service of the
Palace, the army, and the state, whereby they were on the one hand to
serve the Sultan as slaves and freedmen and on the other to form the
ruling class of the State." When the Ottoman Empire allied with Muslim
territories against Christian, slavery would be a major persistence in
ensuring economic gain to both sides. This was showcased during the
Battle of Barawa where Portuguese slaves were held captive by the
Ajuran Empire and sold into slavery to the Ottomans after attacking
the city of Barawa, Somalia.
Indentured servitude
======================
In the 17th to 18th centuries, many white people in Britain, Ireland
and European colonies in North America were indentured servants.
Sterling Professor of History at Yale University David Brion Davis
wrote that:
From Barbados to Virginia, colonists long preferred English or Irish
indentured servants as their main source of field labor; during most
of the seventeenth century they showed few scruples about reducing
their less fortunate countrymen to a status little different from
chattel slaves - a degradation that was being carried out in a more
extreme and far more extensive way with respect to the peasantry in
contemporary Russia. The prevalence and suffering of white slaves,
serfs and indentured servants in the early modern period suggests that
there was nothing inevitable about limiting plantation slavery to
people of African origin.
Between 50 and 67 percent of white immigrants to the American
colonies, from the 1630s and American Revolution, had traveled under
indenture. Many women brought to the colonies were poor, some were
abandoned or young girls born out of wedlock, others prostitutes or
criminals. One ship's captain reportedly described them as a
"villainous and demoralized lot". Many were transported against their
will and for profit to Virginia and Maryland. The French transported
women from the Salpêtrière prison for the homeless, insane and
criminal to New Orleans.
Women held at Salpêtrière were bound in chains, flogged and lived in
generally poor and unsanitary conditions. Female inmates, some of whom
were sick with venereal disease, were forced to attend confessions
three times each day where they would be whipped if their demeanor and
behaviors were not acceptably penitent. In addition to Salpêtrière,
the French transported women from other almshouses and hospitals
including Bicêtre, Hôpital général de Paris and Pitié.
White slave traffic
======================================================================
The International Agreement for the suppression of the White Slave
Traffic is a series of anti-human trafficking treaties, the first of
which was first negotiated in Paris in 1904. It was one of the first
multilateral treaties to address issues of slavery and human
trafficking. The Slavery, Servitude, Forced Labour and Similar
Institutions and Practices Convention of 1926 and the International
Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women of Full Age of
1933 are similar documents.
International campaign against white slavery around 1900
==========================================================
In Anglophone countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the
phrase "white slavery" was used to refer to sexual enslavement of
white women. It was particularly associated with accounts of women
enslaved in Middle Eastern harems, such as the so-called Circassian
beauties, which was a slave trade that was still ongoing in the early
20th century.
The phrase gradually came to be used as a euphemism for prostitution.
The phrase was especially common in the context of the exploitation of
minors, with the implication that children and young women in such
circumstances were not free to decide their own fates.
The slave trade in primarily white girls intended for the harems in
the Ottoman Middle East attracted attention in the West. Attempting to
suppress the practice, an Ottoman 'firman' abolishing the trade of
Circassians and Georgians was issued in October 1854. The decree did
not abolish slavery as such, only the import of new slaves. However,
in March 1858, the Ottoman Governor of Trapezunt informed the British
Consul that the 1854 ban had been a temporary war time ban due to
foreign pressure, and that he had been given orders to allow slave
ships on the Black Sea passage on their way to Constantinople, and in
December formal tax regulations were introduced, legitimizing the
Circassian slave trade again. The so-called Circassian slave trade was
to continue until the 20th century.
The sex slave trade in white girls for sexual slavery (concubinage)
did not stop, and the British travel writer John Murray described a
batch of white slave girls in the Middle East in the 1870s:
:"Their complexion are sallow, and none of them [sic] are even good
looking. But the daily Turkish bath, protection from the sun, and a
wholesome diet, working upon and excellent constitution, accomplish
wonders in a short space of time".
An international campaign against the white slave trade started in
several countries in the West in the late 19th century.
Many of the procurers and prostitutes who had accompanied the British
and French troops to Constantinople during the Crimean war in the
1850s opened brothels in Port Said in Egypt during the construction of
the Suez Canal, and these brothels was a destination for many victims
of the white slave trade, since they were under protection of the
foreign consulates because of the capitulatory privileges until 1937
and therefore protected from the police.
In 1877 the first international congress for the abolition of
prostitution took place in Geneva in Switzerland, followed by the
foundation of the International Association of Friends of Young Girls
(German: 'Internationale Verein Freundinnen junger Mädchen' or FJM;
French: 'Amies de la jeune fille'); after this, national associations
to combat the white slave trade was gradually founded in a number of
nations, such as the Freundinnenverein in Germany, the National
Vigilance Association in Britain and 'Vaksamhet' in Sweden.
Moral panic over the "traffic in women" rose to a peak in England in
the 1880s, after the exposure of the
Eliza Armstrong case and the internationally infamous White slave
trade affair in the 1880s.
In 1884, the Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention pressed upon Egypt
by the British explicitly banned the sex slave trade of "white women"
to slavery in Egypt; this law was particularly targeted against the
import of white women (mainly from Caucasus and usually Circassians
via the Circassian slave trade), which were the preferred choice for
harem concubines among the Egyptian upper class.
The first international congress against prostitution and sex slave
trade in Geneva in 1877, organized by the International Abolitionist
Federation, was followed by conferences in 1899, 1904 and 1910.
When the second international congress against white slave trade took
place in London in 1899, where the International Bureau for the
Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children was founded to
coordinate an international campaign.
The International Abolitionist Federation (1875) and International
Bureau (1899) where the two big pioneering organizations against the
worldwide sex trade and conducted an international campaign via their
local and national sub-sections and associated organizations in
different countries.
As a result of the campaign of the movement suggestions was put
forward on how to combat the white slave trade in Paris in 1902, which
eventually resulted in the International Agreement for the suppression
of the White Slave Traffic in May 1904.
After World War I, the white slave trade or sex trafficking was
addressed by the League of Nations, whose
Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children created the
International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women
and Children in 1921.
White Slave Traffic Act of 1910
=================================
In 1910, the US Congress passed the White Slave Traffic Act (better
known as the Mann Act), which made it a felony to transport women
across state borders for the purpose of "prostitution or debauchery,
or for any other immoral purpose". The Act was applied to a wide
variety of offences, many of which were consensual in nature.
White slavery and race/gender in the US
=========================================
While women were indeed victims of trafficking in the US, the public
outcry about white slavery was mostly in response to racial anxieties
about interracial contact. Local prosecutors in New York were the
first to convict a defendant for "white slavery" case using the Mann
Act. In 'People v. Moore', an all-white jury convicted Bella Moore, a
mixed race woman from New York, for the "compulsory prostitution" of
two white women, Alice Milton and Belle Woods. Another notable court
case involved Jack Johnson. Using the Mann Act, federal prosecutors
convicted Johnson of transporting his white girlfriend across state
lines. During the first half of the 20th century, authorities
disproportionately prosecuted women who were poor and/or racial/ethnic
minorities using the Mann Act.
Criminal Law Amendment (White Slave Traffic) Bill
===================================================
An attempt was made to introduce a similar law into the UK between
1910 and 1913 as the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1912. Arthur Lee
would state in the House of Commons:
"the United Kingdom, and particularly England, is increasingly
becoming a clearing-house and depot and dispatch centre of the white
slave traffic, and the headquarters of the foreign agents engaged in
the most expensive and lucrative phase of the business." South America
was stated as the main destination for the trafficked girls.
'The Spectator' commented that "the Bill has been blocked by a member
[alluding to Frederick Handel Booth] or members who, for various
reasons consider that it is not a measure which ought to be placed
upon the statute book" as it would affect the liberty of the
individual.
See also
======================================================================
* Slavery in medieval Europe
* Slavery in Africa
*
* Kapi Agha
* Ghilman
* Mamluk
* Turkish Abductions
* Guðríður Símonardóttir
* Jan Janszoon
* Ólafur Egilsson
* Rumelia
* Rumelia Eyalet
* Seljuk Empire
* 1926 Slavery Convention
* Slavery in antiquity
* White slave propaganda
* White-Slave Traffic Act
Further reading
======================================================================
*
** The 1847 edition of .
*
* Donovan, Brian. [
https://books.google.com/books?id=06D_Wg64wgsC
White Slave Crusades: Race, Gender, and Anti-vice Activism,
1887-1917.] United States: University of Illinois Press, 2010.
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_slavery
