They Spoke With the Devil: Slave Raiders and Traders

Slavery is the ownership of one human being by another. It has existed throughout history in many cultures and is by no means extinct today. In the distant past, people often slaughtered their enemies but sometimes they were taken prisoner and used as slaves. In the Ancient Egyptians, Greek and Roman Worlds slavery was common. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west in the 5th century slavery continued in western Europe, by the Vikings and other post-Roman societies kept slaves and there were slave markets in towns like London, Dublin and Rome. Slavery also existed in Central America before the Europeans arrived. The Mayans and Aztecs kept slaves who did all the hard work. Slavery also existed in China, India, Japan, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Korea, from Ancient times to the 20th century. From the 7th century through the 19th centuries Muslim Arabs took vast numbers of slaves from Africa, transported across the Sahara or the Indian ocean other Muslijm states. In the 15th century, shortly after the Portuguese began to explore the coast of Africa, tey began to trade for slaves to transport to Portugal and Spain; later across the Atlantic to the New World. In the 18th-century ships from Britain took manufactured goods to Africa in exchange for slaves who were transported to the West Indies, taking sugar back to Britain. Many slaves were captured in raids by other Africans, who brought captives to the slave post on the coast to trade, and any slave who were not sold was either killed or used as slaves by other Africans. For the voyage across the Atlantic, slaves were crammed into holds of the slave ships where many died of disease or starvation. In the West Indies the slaves were forced to work or as domestics on plantations. From the 16th century to the 19th century there were many European slaves in North Africa capture by the Barbary pirates from North Africa. From the 15th century to the 18th century, Crimean Tatars raided the Slavic lands to the north for slaves. However, in the 18th century public opinion in Europe began to turn against slavery. The first nation to abolish the slave trade was Denmark, in 1792, with Britain following suit in 1807. The American Congress abolished the slave trade in 1808. The Royal Navy played a major role in ending the Transatlantic slave trade, employing its West Africa Squadron to patrol the sea off West Africa. The East African slave trade theoretically “ended” when the European powers colonized Africa at the end of the 19th century.