Barbary slave trade

The redemption (buying back) of Christian captives by Mercedarian friars in the Barbary states
The Barbary Coast.

The Barbary slave trade involved the capture and selling of white European slaves at slave markets in the largely independent Ottoman Barbary states. European slaves were captured by Barbary pirates in slave raids on ships and by raids on coastal towns from Italy to Ireland, and the southwest of Britain, as far north as Iceland and into the Eastern Mediterranean.

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


The Barbary slave trade came to an end in the early years of the 19th century, after the United States and European allies won the First and Second Barbary Wars against the pirates and the region was conquered by France, putting an end to the trade by the 1830s.

  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

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