Danish slave trade

Danish slave trade
Danish slave trade
1733–1807
Location	Saint Croix, Saint Thomas, Saint John (Danish West Indies)
Including	African slaves

Last updated October 26, 2024

The Danish slave trade occurred separately in two different periods: the trade in European slaves during the Viking Age, from the 8th to 10th century; and the Danish role in selling African slaves during the Atlantic slave trade, which commenced in 1733 and ended in 1807 when the abolition of slavery was announced.^[1] The location of the latter slave trade primarily occurred in the Danish West Indies (Saint Thomas, Saint Croix, and Saint John) where slaves were tasked with many different manual labour activities, primarily working on sugar plantations. The slave trade had many impacts that varied in their nature (economic and humanitarian), with some more severe than others. After many years of slavery in the Danish West Indies, Christian VII decided to abolish slave trading.

Danish slave trade during the Viking Age

During the Viking Age, thralls (Norse slaves) were an important part of the economy and one of the main reasons for the raids on England in which slaves were captured. This practice was largely abandoned once Denmark became Christian in the 10th century, but continued into the 14th century.^[1]

Background

Slavery was common in the Viking age period, and one of the main reasons for the Viking expansion was the search for slaves in other countries. One of the reasons Kievan Rus came to be was that Scandinavian settlers established themselves and traded with captured slaves. Arabic merchants from the Caspian Sea and Byzantine merchants from the Black Sea brought their goods to the trade markets in Rus, where they met the Viking traders and warriors known as Varangians, and traded their goods for the slaves captured by the Vikings in Europe.

The Vikings used the demand for slaves in the Southern slave markets in the Orthodox Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Middle Eastern Caliphate, both of whom craved slaves of a different religion than their own. During the Middle Ages, organized alongside religious principles, both Christians and Muslims banned the enslavement of people of their own faith, but both approved of the enslavement of people of a different faith;^[2] both did allow the enslavement of people they regarded to be heretics, which allowed Catholic Christians to enslave Orthodox Christians, and Sunni Muslims to enslave Shia Muslims.^[3] However, both Christians and Muslims approved of enslaving Pagans, who came to be a preferred target of the slave trade in the Middle Ages, and Pagan war captives were sold by Pagan enemies into the slave trade.^[3]

Viking slave trade

The Vikings trafficked European slaves captured in Viking raids in Europe via Scandinavia to the East in two destinations via present day Russia and the Volga trade route; one to Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate in the Middle East via the Caspian Sea, the Samanid slave trade and Iran; and one to the Byzantine Empire and the Mediterranean via Dnieper and the Black Sea slave trade.^[4]^[5] Until the 9th century, the Vikings trafficked European slaves from the Baltic Sea in the North or the North Sea in the West via the Wisla or the Donau rivers southeast through Europe to the Black Sea.^[6] The Viking slave route was redirected in the 9th century, and until the 11th century the Vikings trafficked European slaves from the Baltic Sea via Ladoga, Novgorod and the Msta river via the Route from the Varangians to the Greeks to the Byzantine Empire via the Black Sea slave trade, or to the Abbasid Caliphate via the Caspian Sea (and the Bukhara slave trade) via the Volga trade route.^[6]

People taken captive during the Viking raids in Western Europe, such as Ireland, could be sold to Moorish Spain via the Dublin slave trade ^[7] or transported to Hedeby or Brännö and from there via the Volga trade route to present day Russia, where slaves and furs were sold to Muslim merchants in exchange for Arab silver dirham and silk, which have been found in Birka, Wollin and Dublin;^[8] initially this trade route between Europe and the Abbasid Caliphate passed via the Khazar Kaghanate,^[9] but from the early 10th century onward it went via Volga Bulgaria and from there by caravan to Khwarazm, to the Samanid slave market in Central Asia and finally via Iran to the Abbasid Caliphate.^[10]

Archbishop Rimbert of Bremen (died 888) reported that he witnessed a "large throng of captured Christians being hauled away" in the Viking port of Hedeby in Denmark, one of whom was a woman who sang psalms to identify herself as a Christian nun, and who the bishop was able to free by exchanging his horse for her freedom.^[11]

This trade was the source of the Arab dirham silver hoards found in Scandinavia and functioned from at least 786 until 1009, when such coins have been found there, and it would have been so lucrative that it contributed to the continuing Viking raids in Europe, which was used by the Vikings as a slave supply source for this trade with the Islamic world.^[12] Among such hoards can be mentioned the Spillings Hoard and the Sundveda Hoard.

One of the only accounts describing Norse slave practices in detail and first person is the Arabic merchant Ibn Fadlan meeting Volga Vikings. Describing Vikings using the Volga trade route using Saqaliba or Slavic slaves as translators when trading. There he describes the Norse ship burials only known in Norse society before the Viking expansion in 800 AD into present day Russia and Ukraine and that a slave girl was sacrificed to follow her master. Norse burials found in Sweden and Norway indicate that slaves were sacrificed in Sweden to follow their masters to the afterlife. However, Swedish archaeology shows that mostly male slaves were killed to follow their master into the afterlife and not females. Sacrificed female slaves have however been found sacrificed in Norway, where a woman found in the grave showed signs of having her throat slit in a similar manner to the execution described by Ibn Fadlan.^[13]^[14]

During the 11th century, the Viking nations of Denmark, Norway and Sweden became Christian, which made it impossible for them to continue to conduct slave raids toward Christian Europe and sell Christian Europeans to Islamic slave traders. Slavery as such was gradually replaced by serfdom (Danish : hoveriet) in the 13th century.

Sites

Few sites remain that are directly linked to the Viking Age slavery, but the circular forts known as Trelleborge (Slave fortresses), have since 2023 been recognized as UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Danish transatlantic slave trade

The involvement in the transatlantic slave trade began in the mid-1700s when they would transport African peoples to what was known then as The Gold Coast (located in the city of Accra in Ghana).^[15] Fort Christiansborg was the Danish fort that controlled the incomings and outgoings of slaves, the base in Ghana for the Danes.^[1]

Danish West Indies

The Danes had control over the Danish West Indies for around 250 years, from 1672 up until its sale to the U.S. in 1917.^[16] The Danish West Indies played a significant role in the Danish slave trade as this was the final destination for many of the slaves. The three islands that made up the Danish West Indies included Saint John, Saint Thomas, and Saint Croix.^[16]

Sugar, coffee, and tobacco were the primary resources that were cultivated on the islands as they all provided the Danes with significant returns. Plantation work was perceived as extremely demanding, especially for female slaves who were unable to maintain the high degree of manual labour that was required.^[17] The standard of living on the islands was very poor, with many slaves often catching fatal diseases or dying from exhaustion and malnutrition. A common misconception was that slaves were given enough food provisions weekly that would sustain them during their work. However, according to Martens (2016), these provisions were unsatisfactory and did not meet the minimum requirements to live healthily.^[18]

In 1915, negotiations between America and Denmark began over the sale of the three islands (Saint Thomas, Saint Croix, Saint John). The U.S. became increasingly concerned that Germany would make an attempt to acquire the islands and decided to act upon their instinct. Eventually, the U.S. bought the islands for US$25,000,000 of gold coin.^[16] The islands are now known as the U.S Virgin Islands.

Saint Thomas

Saint Thomas was the first island in the Danish West Indies that was used by the Danes for slave labour. It was the order of the then King Christian V to seize the island with the sole aim of acquiring the plantations on the island, which included primarily sugar and tobacco produce.^[19] A problem the Danish West India Company soon encountered was that convicts were terrible workers, and it was for this reason that they came to the realisation that colonists from neighbouring countries who had access to African slaves were much better suited to the nature of the work.

Before sugar plantations became the most popular crop, the Danish government established taphus. Taphus were essentially beer houses and halls that produced vast amounts of the alcohol to be transported overseas.^[19] However, the beer halls quickly became very unpopular with the Danish government as they attracted pirates to the islands, and also the economic benefit of producing beer was outweighed by the costs of building the infrastructure for the halls. In the early 1700s, sugar quickly became the most popular crop, with plantations scattered all over the island. With strict Danish government officials overseeing workers in St Thomas, slave traders would visit St. Thomas to purchase slaves as they were known to be good workers.^[19]

Saint John

One of the first locations where the Danes brought African slaves was Saint John. In 1717, 150 African slaves from Akwamu (now Ghana) were brought to the islands to work on the plantations.^[20] At the time, the island only cultivated cotton and tobacco.^[21] During the transition from Saint Thomas to Saint John, the Akwamu slaves all revolted against the owners of the plantations by taking over the property and deploying slaves from other African tribes to complete the work. Reasons for this revolt came from the introduction of harsh slave policies, new African slaves who would have rather died than be slaves, and a summer of natural disasters.^[20] However, by 1734, the plantation owners eventually regained control of the island.^[22]^{[ circular reference ]} The primary reason for revolts such as these was due to the fact that owners did not reside on the island. Instead, they would rely upon overseers, who were known as “mesterknægte” ['master knaves'].^[21]

Saint Croix

In 1733, the Danish West Indies Company bought Saint Croix from the French government.^[23] A key attribute of Saint Croix was its independent government, which differentiated it to Saint Thomas and Saint John. Planters soon became frustrated with this and demanded the King of Denmark buy the company.^[23] As Saint Croix was the most lucrative island out of the three, the King decided that it should be the capital of the three islands. This meant the capital was to be moved from Saint Thomas to Saint Croix.

Saint Croix's wealth was heavily attributed to its production of sugar, but also rum.^[23] The other commodities it exported included cotton, molasses, and hard woods. By 1803, there was a total of 26,500 slaves on the island (the most out of the three), but as Denmark's role in the slave trade began to fade, this number reduced significantly.

Impacts of the slave trade

The Danish Slave trade had a range of impacts, ranging from humanitarian consequences to economic changes. Also, the severity of these impacts ranged massively as some were fatal and others purely menial consequences that arose as a result of a significant power imbalance.

Human impact

For the duration of the slave trade, it is estimated that over 100,000 African slaves were transported to the Danish West Indies, with approximately half of them dying due to the inhumane conditions.^[24] From 1733 (after the concept of New World Slavery was introduced), owners of the sugar plantations would threaten any slave that was abusive or disrespectful towards white people.^[25] For those who did not obey these orders, they were scored with red-hot iron tongs or even hung if the slave owner did not see the need for the slave.^[25]

Economic impact

A key motive for the Danish government to transport slaves to the West Indies was the potential economic gain. The production of sugar was a key objective for the Danes as it provided them with high returns from buyers and investors.^[25] Trading sugar with other nations for other commodities such as rice, rum and cotton meant that Denmark had a means of negotiation when purchasing commodities.^[26] On top of the significant returns produced by the sugar production, many Danish citizens were employed on the plantations, contributing to a low unemployment rate in Denmark at the time.^[25] Historians are still unsure as to the profitability companies actually made, yet it is estimated that the profit margins were around 2.58% annually.^[25]

Slave trade abolition

In 1792, Christian VII of Denmark announced the Danes would be abolishing their slave trade practices in the Danish West Indies.^[27] The announcement declared that from the start of 1803 the Danes would no longer partake in slave trading on the African coast.^[27]

Economic and humanitarian concerns are seen as the primary reasons why the Danish slave trade was abolished. Economically, politicians no longer saw the slave trade as a profitable means of improving the nation's economy.^[27] On a humanitarian level, the conditions and treatment of workers were beginning to become heavily scrutinized by the world's population. As such, Denmark wanted to become the first European nation to abolish the slave trade and ensure they did so before the British, which would, in turn, provide them with international recognition.^[27]

Denmark's apology

In 2017, foreign minister, Anders Samuelsen, apologised for the many years of torture and treatment of African slaves. In his apology to the Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo-Addo, Anders claimed "Nothing can justify the exploitation of men, women and children in which Denmark took part".^[28]

Many years before the apology, Denmark (through its DANIDA Agency) had been helping Ghana with both social and economic sectors, human rights, and good governance.^[29] More recently, Ghana and Denmark formulated a partnership aimed at supporting COVID-19 responses across Africa.^[30]

Related Research Articles

The Danish West Indies or Danish Virgin Islands or Danish Antilles were a Danish colony in the Caribbean, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas with 32 square miles (83 km²); Saint John with 19 square miles (49 km²); and Saint Croix with 84 square miles (220 km²). The islands have belonged to the United States as the Virgin Islands since they were purchased in 1917. Water Island was part of the Danish West Indies until 1905, when the Danish state sold it to the East Asiatic Company, a private shipping company.

The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage. Europeans established a coastal slave trade in the 15th century and trade to the Americas began in the 16th century, lasting through the 19th century. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were from Central Africa and West Africa and had been sold by West African slave traders to European slave traders, while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids. European slave traders gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Some Portuguese and Europeans participated in slave raids. As the National Museums Liverpool explains: "European traders captured some Africans in raids along the coast, but bought most of them from local African or African-European dealers." Many European slave traders generally did not participate in slave raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade because of malaria that was endemic in the African continent. An article from PBS explains: "Malaria, dysentery, yellow fever, and other diseases reduced the few Europeans living and trading along the West African coast to a chronic state of ill health and earned Africa the name 'white man's grave.' In this environment, European merchants were rarely in a position to call the shots." The earliest known use of the phrase began in the 1830s, and the earliest written evidence was found in an 1836 published book by F. H. Rankin. Portuguese coastal raiders found that slave raiding was too costly and often ineffective and opted for established commercial relations.

Triangular trade or triangle trade is trade between three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. It has been used to offset trade imbalances between different regions.

The Swedish slave trade mainly occurred in the early history of Sweden when the trade of thralls was one of the pillars of the Norse economy. During the raids, the Vikings often captured and enslaved militarily weaker peoples they encountered, but took the most slaves in raids of the British Isles, and Slavs in Eastern Europe. This slave trade lasted from the 8th through the 11th centuries. Slavery itself was abolished in Sweden in 1335. A smaller trade of African slaves happened during the 17th and 18th centuries, around the time Swedish overseas colonies were established in North America and in Africa. Similarly to other European powers, slavery was banned in the motherland while being legal in the colonies. Consequently, slavery remained legal on the sole Swedish Caribbean colony of Saint Barthélemy from 1784 until 1847.

Danish overseas colonies and Dano-Norwegian colonies were the colonies that Denmark–Norway possessed from 1536 until 1953. At its apex, the colonies spanned four continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.

Sugar plantations in the Caribbean were a major part of the economy of the islands in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Most Caribbean islands were covered with sugar cane fields and mills for refining the crop. The main source of labor, until the abolition of chattel slavery, was enslaved Africans. After the abolition of slavery, indentured laborers from India, China, Portugal and other places were brought to the Caribbean to work in the sugar industry. These plantations produced 80 to 90 percent of the sugar consumed in Western Europe, later supplanted by European-grown sugar beet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christiansted, U.S. Virgin Islands</span> Town in Virgin Islands, United States

Christiansted is the largest town on Saint Croix, one of the main islands composing the United States Virgin Islands, a territory of the United States of America. The town is named after King Christian VI of Denmark.

Saqaliba is a term used in medieval Arabic sources to refer to Slavs, and other peoples of Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe. The term originates from the Middle Greek slavos/sklavenos (Slav), which in Hispano-Arabic came to designate first Slavic slaves and then, similarly to the semantic development of the term in other West-European languages, foreign slaves in general.

The Danish West India Company or Danish West India–Guinea Company was a Dano-Norwegian chartered company that operated out of the colonies in the Danish West Indies. It is estimated that 120,000 enslaved Africans were transported on the company's ships. Founded as the Danish Africa Company in 1659, it was incorporated into the Danish West India Company in 1671.

Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.

The United States Virgin Islands, often abbreviated USVI, are a group of islands and cays located in the Lesser Antilles of the Eastern Caribbean, consisting of three main islands and fifty smaller islets and cays. Like many of their Caribbean neighbors, the history of the islands is characterized by native Amerindian settlement, European colonization, and the Atlantic slave trade.

The Danish Gold Coast comprised the colonies that Denmark–Norway controlled in Africa as a part of the Gold Coast, which is on the Gulf of Guinea. It was colonized by the Dano-Norwegian fleet, first under indirect rule by the Danish West India Company, later as a crown colony of the kingdom of Denmark-Norway. The area under Danish influence was over 10,000 square kilometres.

The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of slaves have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slave raiding</span> Military attack launched against a settlement

Slave raiding is a military raid for the purpose of capturing people and bringing them from the raid area to serve as slaves. Once seen as a normal part of warfare, it is nowadays widely considered a war crime. Slave raiding has occurred since antiquity. Some of the earliest surviving written records of slave raiding come from Sumer. Kidnapping and prisoners of war were the most common sources of African slaves, although indentured servitude or punishment also resulted in slavery.

In the Middle Ages, the Volga trade route connected Northern Europe and Northwestern Russia with the Caspian Sea and the Sasanian Empire, 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 powerful Volga Bulgars formed a seminomadic confederation and traded through the Volga river with Viking people of Rus' and Scandinavia and with the southern Byzantine Empire Furthermore, Volga Bulgaria, with its two cities Bulgar and Suvar east of what is today Moscow, traded with Russians and the fur-selling Ugrians. Chess was introduced to Medieval Rus via the Caspian-Volga trade routes from Persia and Arabia.

The 1733 slave insurrection on St. John or the Slave Uprising of 1733, was a slave insurrection started on Sankt Jan in the Danish West Indies on November 23, 1733, when 150 African slaves from Akwamu, in present-day Ghana, revolted against the owners and managers of the island's plantations. Led by Breffu, an enslaved woman from Ghana, and lasting several months into August 1734, the slave rebellion was one of the earliest and longest slave revolts in the Americas. The Akwamu slaves captured the fort in Coral Bay and took control of most of the island. They intended to resume crop production under their control.

Sugar production in the United States Virgin Islands was an important part of the economy of the United States Virgin Islands for over two hundred years. Long before the islands became part of the United States in 1917, the islands, in particular the island of Saint Croix, was exploited by the Danish from the early 18th century and by 1800 over 30,000 acres were under cultivation, earning Saint Croix a reputation as the "Garden of the West Indies". Since the closing of the last sugar factory on Saint Croix in 1966, the industry has become only a memory.

Slavery had already existed in Ireland for centuries by the time the Vikings began to establish their coastal settlements, but it was under the Norse-Gael Kingdom of Dublin that it reached its peak, in the 11th century.

The Black Sea slave trade trafficked people across the Black Sea from Europe and the Caucasus to slavery in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The Black Sea slave trade was a center of the slave trade between Europe and the rest of the world from antiquity until the 19th century. One of the major and most significant slave trades of the Black Sea region was the trade of the Crimean Khanate, known as the Crimean slave trade.

The Khazar slave trade took place in the Khazar Khaganate in Central Asia.

References

1 2 3 "The Danish slave trade - timeline for teaching purposes". Rigsarkivet. Retrieved 2022-05-11.
↑ Slavery in the Black Sea Region, C.900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. (2021). Nederländerna: Brill. 5
1 2 Korpela, J. (2018). Slaves from the North: Finns and Karelians in the East European Slave Trade, 900–1600. Nederländerna: Brill. 242
↑ Pargas & Schiel, Damian A.; Juliane (2023). The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery Throughout History. Tyskland: Springer International Publishing. p. 126
↑ The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery Throughout History. (2023). Tyskland: Springer International Publishing. p. 126
1 2 Korpela, Jukka Jari (2018). Slaves from the North – Finns and Karelians in the East European Slave Trade, 900–1600. Studies in Global Slavery, Band: 5. Nederländerna: Brill. p. 35
↑ "The Slave Market of Dublin". 23 April 2013.
↑ The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 3, C.900-c.1024. (1995). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 91
↑ The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives. Selected Papers from the Jerusalem 1999 International Khazar Colloquium. (2007). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 232
↑ The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 3, C.900-c.1024. (1995). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 504
↑ The slave trade of European women to the Middle East and Asia from antiquity to the ninth century. by Kathryn Ann Hain. Department of History The University of Utah. December 2016. Copyright © Kathryn Ann Hain 2016. All Rights Reserved. https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6616pp7. p. 244-246
↑ The slave trade of European women to the Middle East and Asia from antiquity to the ninth century. by Kathryn Ann Hain. Department of History The University of Utah. December 2016. Copyright © Kathryn Ann Hain 2016. All Rights Reserved. https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6616pp7.
↑ Simone Liw de Bernardi (2020) Vikingatidens begravningsritualer – avrättad för att följa en annan i graven, Uppsala university
↑ " British Archaeology magazine. Vol. 59. Britarch.ac.uk. June 2001. Archived from the original on 2011-02-13. Retrieved 2014-02-03.
↑ Gøbel, Erik (2017). The Danish slave trade and its abolition. Brill. pp. 1–33. ISBN 9789004330566.
1 2 3 "Slavery". The Danish West-Indies. Retrieved 2022-05-11.
↑ Harris, William A, Ashton (1992). Slave Society in the Danish West Indies: St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, Jamaica. pp. 1–50. ISBN 9764100295.
↑ Martens (2016). "Royal slaves in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies 1792-1848: Living in autonomy". Scandinavian Journal of History. 41 (4–5): 1–50. doi:10.1080/03468755.2016.1210885. S2CID 151826728 – via CAUL.
1 2 3 "St. Thomas, Virgin Islands: Facts & History".
1 2 "St. John, Virgin Islands: Facts & History".
1 2 "The occupation of St. John".
↑ "1733 slave insurrection on St. John".
1 2 3 "St. Croix, Virgin Islands: Facts & History".
↑ Madsen, Maj Bach (2012-08-27). "Denmark cannot apologise for slave trade". sciencenordic.com (in Norwegian Bokmål). Retrieved 2022-05-12.
1 2 3 4 5 Stawski, Scott (2018). "Denmark's Veiled Role in Slavery in the Americas: The Impact of the Danish West Indies on the Transatlantic Slave Trade" (PDF). Harvard Library. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
↑ Eltis, David (1994). "Seventeenth-century west African trade: The relative importance of slaves and commodities in the Atlantic trade of seventeenth-century Africa". Journal of African History. 35: 237–249. doi:10.1017/S0021853700026414. JSTOR 183218. S2CID 162875043.
1 2 3 4 Roge, Pernille (2014). "Why the Danes Got There First - A Trans-Imperial Study of the Abolition of the Danish Slave Trade in 1792". Routledge . Vol. 35, no. 4. pp. 576–592. doi:10.1080/0144039X.2013.852709.
↑ "Danish Government apologises to Ghana for slave trade".
↑ "Denmark - Ghana Partnership Policy 2014-2018".
↑ "The Government of Ghana, the Embassy of Denmark and UNICEF launch a partnership to support the COVID-19 response".