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In our previous videos we discussed various slave trades and how they evolved operated
and eventually died out over time. However most people only think of the Transatlantic
Slave Trade conducted by the major European powers from the late 15th to the early 19th
centuries. Institutionalized slavery has always been a part of culture and societies but over
time the practice died due to social religious pressures or even the development of technology
rendering the practice irrelevant. But the European slave trade paled in comparison to
that of the Muslims in both numbers and those enslaved and the longevity of the practice. How
did both slave trades begin? Which slave trade lasted the longest? Which slave trade enslaved
the most people? Which was the most widespread and which ended [Music] last? Hello I'm Colin Heaton
military veteran historian author and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History [Music]
[Music] In 1415 Prince Henry the Navigator and his father King John I Portugal and his older brothers
led an attack on Cueta, Morocco which became a Portuguese province. Henry later sponsored Nuno
Tristao's exploration of the African coast and Antao Goncalves's hunting expedition to Africa
in 1441. Both men captured several Africans and brought them back to Portugal one being
a chief who in a business deal returned to Africa promising an exchange to provide the
Portuguese with more Africans which started the slave trade. These expeditions brought back gold
Ivory and slaves enriching the Portuguese economy and helping find further expeditions which started
their empire. The creation of better and more accurate maps would aid future empirical slave
traders. These efforts saw the Portuguese become the first to round the Cape of Good Hope of South
Africa reach the African East Coast then India by Vasco de Gama and even reaching Japan. Once
the Portuguese sailor Pedro Alvarez Cabral landed in Brazil in 1500 the region was colonized by the
1530s and with its agricultural requirements black slavery exploded. Brazil became the most important
colony in the Portuguese Empire and and was at one time or another the world's leading producer of
sugar diamonds and tobacco all due to the slave trade. Soon the Spanish followed suit and began
their slave trade to their South American colonies and with the Treaty of Torsedillas in 1494 being
in effect Spain and Portugal divided the new world between them. The growth of these empires saw the
English French and Dutch launch their own slave trades with their new world colonies in North
America and the Caribbean as all had their growing empires and the need for free labor.
But times and the mindsets of the western nations began to be influenced by what became known as
The Age of Reason and The Enlightenment where men such as Edmund Burke, Voltair,
Rousseau and other philosophers forced societies to examine their consciences and morality on many
subjects slavery included. These movements resonated with many influential people. The
first step was when the United States under President Thomas Jefferson proposed to ban the
importation of slaves from Africa in 1804 which took effect in 1808 although not abolishing the
practice within the United States. As stated: "In 1778 he (Jefferson) drafted a Virginia law
that prohibited the importation of enslaved Africans. In 1784 he proposed an ordinance
that would ban slavery in the Northwest Territories. But Jefferson always maintained
that the decision to emancipate slaves would have to be a part of a democratic process; abolition
would be stymied until slave owners consented to free their human property together in a large
scale act of emancipation." In 1787 the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded
in Britain by Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson and in 1792 Denmark banned the slave trade into
its West Indian colonies going to effect in 1803 but owning slaves only ended in 1848. Spain then
abolished the slave trade from Africa in 1811 but Cuba ignored the law and continued the trade while
Sweden made it illegal in 1814 the Netherlands in 1817 as did France but it did not go into
effect throughout their empire until 1826 but slaves in their colonies were not freed until
1851. Great Britain and Spain signed a treaty prohibiting the slave trade in 1819 but Portugal
only agreed to abolish the slave trade north of the equator which kind of made no sense but
finally ended ownership in its empire in 1858 and Brazil proper had ended slavery in total in 1888.
The British joined in 1807 through the efforts of William Wilberforce and the Slave Trade Act passed
which made it illegal to purchase slaves directly from Africa although slavery remained widespread
and legal in the British Caribbean. The European slave trade from Africa effectively ended by the
1830s with exception to Spain and Portugal. In 1833 due to pressure from Quakers Anglican and
Anti-Slavery Society members Parliament ended slavery in the British Empire taking effect the
next year. The United States banned slavery in the country in 1865 and Cuba abolished slavery
in 1886 while the Royal Navy's West African Squadron still enforced the law between 1808
and 1860 and freed 150,000 Africans often capturing Spanish and Portuguese slave ships.
In 1926 the League of Nations Slavery Convention abolished slavery globally. In 1948 United Nations
General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating; "No one shall be held
in slavery or servitude slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."
Effectively slavery in the Western Christian world was over after an estimated 13 million
human beings had been transported from Africa with around 6 million going to Brazil alone 4
million going to Spanish colonies and up to about 400,000 brought to the English colonies over a
250-year period. The Spanish and Portuguese were undoubtedly the most active slave traders. However
as we stated in previous videos the Christian Transatlantic Slave Trade lasting 400 years
paled in comparison to the trade practiced by the Muslims within their various empires and not just
in Africa but Europe and Asia also. Long before the prophet Mohammad began his conquests slavery
existed and he ensured to incorporate the practice within the Quran following upon that religious
creation combining many of the teachings of both Judaism and Christianity. As Islam spread across
the Arabian Peninsula North Africa Europe and into Asia slavery was a part of the process. Under
Islam slavery existed as a legitimate business from the late 6th Century until the last Muslim
nation officially banned slavery in the late 20th century. Slavery exploded under the early
Abbasid Caliphate from around 750 to 950 AD but not all slavery was equal in the Islamic world.
Slaves from many ethnic and religious groups worked in building irrigation systems various
types of mining animal husbandry but also they served as conscripts as soldiers guards domestic
workers and sex slaves. Most slaves came from non-Muslim regions as enslaving fellow Muslims
violated Islamic Law. The Umayyads raided the Byzantine Empire and flooded the slave market
with Greek Serb and Eastern European slaves especially Slavs and Russians and Ukrainians.
Using slaves for hard physical labor led to a few slave revolts such as the Zanj Rebellion of
1869 to 1883 in southern Iraq which was a massive uprising of Bantu slaves captured in East Africa
which was so violent and impacting it led to an end of that practice under the Abbasids. Another
example comes from the Arab historian Al-Utbi who chronicled that after the battle of Peshawar
in the year 1001 Muslim armies "...in the midst of the land of the Hindustan" had captured some
100,000 youths. Muslim slavers also scoured the Indian Ocean hitting Indonesia and other
Island regions taking millions of slaves over the centuries and converting them to Islam.
Many rulers also used slaves in the military and administration to such an extent that slaves could
seize power as did the Mameluks in Egypt. "Over time they became a powerful military cast often
defeating the Crusaders and on more than one occasion; they seized power for themselves for
example ruling Egypt in the Mameluk sultanate from 1250 to 1517." The Ottomans also greatly expanded
slavery with their incursions into Central Europe during the Middle Ages through the
late 16th century. White European slaves were the most sought after especially women. This was also
part of the North African White Slave Trade and see our video on that subject where Berbers and
Moors raided Europe even reaching Ireland Iceland and the coastal regions of England and Norway to
kidnap slaves. It is estimated that over 1 million Europeans were taken over the centuries. Likewise
Russia and Ukraine were favorite hunting grounds for Muslim slavers and untold millions of people
fell into to that life of enforced servitude. But by the 14th century and beyond the bulk of
Muslim slaves came from Sub-Saharan Africa due to massive European military victories over the
Ottomans in particular from the 16th century onward and although the Quran does not condone
racial prejudice the Arab slave traders often did and the blacks were treated far worse than slaves
from Ethiopia Somalia and other regions especially the Europeans a practice openly condemned by many
Islamic leaders to their credit especially among the Ottomans. Many will argue wrongly
that "Muslim slavery was not chattel slavery" and I will preempt that argument by saying that in
some cases it actually was. Although many slaves especially under the Ottomans had the opportunity
for upward social mobility so did black slaves in the United States who received emancipation
from their owners. Freedom from slavery being granted was almost unique to the United States
as such a practice was nearly unheard of in the Spanish Portuguese colonies even in the British
Empire. Slaves in the US were considered valuable property but not so in the Muslim world in many
cases. Children in the Islamic slave markets were in high demand far exceeding the Christian method
even in the US. Many black Muslim slaves lived in appalling conditions suffering abuse malnutrition
and disease with very low life expectancies and an astronomical infant mortality rates.
As late as the 19th century, "Western travelers in North Africa and Egypt noted the high death
rate among imported black slaves." Of great interest European political leaders in the
Berlin Conference of 1884-85 where they wanted to carve Africa up for their own purposes cited the
slave trades in Africa as the prime reason for their respective Colonial presences in
Africa. But In fairness it should also be stated that this proposal for colonial expansion was also
due in large part for the need to have their respective populations accept the individual
national interests of creating new colonies. Southeast Africa and the Indian Ocean continued
to be an important region for the Oriental slave trade up until the 19th century and David
Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley were the first Europeans to reach the interior of the
Congo River Basin and they discovered that massive slave trade. In fact the Arab Trader
Tippu Tip was the greatest of these slave traders and please see our video on him.
Therefore Islamic slavery was brutal expansive long lived and very slow to end in the Muslim
world having lasted over 1,400 years as a legal and religious practice where religion
and law "Shari'a Law" were one and the same. For example here is a list of the Islamic nations and
when they ended legal slavery. This will be of interest: Zanzibar ended slavery in 1909,
Morocco ended slavery in 1922, Turkey the post-Ottoman Empire in 1924, Iran
and Jordan ended slavery in 1929, Bahrain ended slavery in 1937, Kuwait in 1949, Qatar in 1952,
Yemen and Saudi Arabia in 1962 while Oman followed with abolishing slavery as late as
1970. Mauritania became the last nation to abolish slavery in 1981 and in 1990 the Cairo Decaration
on Human Rights in Islam declared that "no one has the right to enslave another human being."
Slavery in the Muslim world did not end due to a comparable Age of Reason or Enlightenment period
pushing moral religious and social pressures as had happened in Europe. Open legal slavery only
ended because the Western industrialized nations would not do business with them; in many cases
and these nations found that being a pariah state was not conducive to good international
relations let alone business. Also all of these nations listed were at some point in time former
colonial possessions or mandates of the major European powers especially the former possessions
of the Ottoman Empire until after World War I and their influence was critical to achieving
freedom for tens of millions as condition for the possession being granted independence.
But believe it or not even today there is still a thriving slave trade in Libya
and Sudan where government control does not exist and there is no international
action or condemnation. Today Isis and other Islamic groups still take slaves
usually operating in lawless regions where no central governments exist
or if it does it operates in name only; and they are not Christians, just saying.
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