The shocking history of enslavement of 1.5 million white Europeans in North Africa in the 16th century

The shocking history of enslavement of 1.5 million white Europeans in North Africa in the 16th century

Late last year, the BBC reported that historians had launched a campaign to create awareness about the Barbary pirates of North Africa. These pirates, also called the Barbary corsairs, captured hundreds of thousands of people from Britain’s coastal communities from the 16th to 19th century and sold them into slavery in North Africa, where many spent the rest of their lives. The Barbary slave trade, which occurred at the same time as the Trans-Atlantic slave trade where black Africans were shipped off from Africa to the Americas, has been an especially contentious topic, drawing furious debate on the issues of slavery, racism, and religion. Also called the ‘White Slavery’, the trade occurred on the Berber Coast of North Africa that encompasses present-day Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Algeria, which were then independent states under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire. The people in the region were mainly African Arabs. While some contend that Barbary pirates were African, others, like historian Adrian Tinniswood, maintains that though some of the pirates were Barbary natives, many were European renegades who brought naval expertise to the piracy business. Some notable ones were Henry Mainwaring, Captain Jack Ward, Sinan Reis, and Dragut as well as the Barbarossa brothers, Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli, and Salih Reis, traders of Turkish descent who held the piracy and slavery business in high esteem. The Barbary pirates were known to have demanded tributes or ransoms from American and Swedish vessels in the Mediterranean Sea or attack European and American ships, especially in Baltimore, Ireland, and Devon and Cornwall, England. Their captives ranged from fishermen, sailors to coastal villagers and were mostly Christian and from impoverished families. But historians are careful to note that, “slaves in Barbary could be black, brown or white, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish or Muslim”.

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