Hedeby was an important Danish Viking Age trading settlement near the southern end of the Jutland Peninsula, now in the Schleswig-Flensburg district of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Around 965, chronicler Abraham ben Jacob visited Hedeby and described it as, "a very large city at the very end of the world's ocean."
Atil, also Itil, was the capital of the Khazar Khaganate from the mid-8th century to the late 10th century. It is known historically to have been situated along the Silk Road, on the northern coast of the Caspian Sea, in the Volga Delta region of modern Southern Russia. Its precise location has long been unknown.
Volga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulgaria was a historical Bulgar state that existed between the 9th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now European Russia. Volga Bulgaria was a multi-ethnic state with large numbers of Bulgars, Finno-Ugrians, Varangians, and East Slavs. Its strategic position allowed it to create a local trade monopoly with Norse, Cumans, and Pannonian Avars.
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.
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 Slavic slaves.
Brännö is an island in the Southern Göteborg Archipelago and a locality situated in Göteborg Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It had 708 inhabitants in 2010 and belongs to the parish of Styrsö within Gothenburg Municipality.
A slave market is a place where slaves are bought and sold. These markets are a key phenomenon in the history of slavery.
The Arab–Khazar wars were a series of conflicts fought between the Khazar Khaganate and successive Arab caliphates in the Caucasus region from c. 642 to 799 CE. Smaller native principalities were also involved in the conflict as vassals of the two empires. Historians usually distinguish two major periods of conflict, the First Arab–Khazar War and Second Arab–Khazar War ; the wars also involved sporadic raids and isolated clashes from the mid-seventh century to the end of the eighth century.
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.
Viking activity in the British Isles occurred during the Early Middle Ages, the 8th to the 11th centuries CE, when Scandinavians travelled to the British Isles to raid, conquer, settle and trade. They are generally referred to as Vikings, but some scholars debate whether the term Viking represented all Scandinavian settlers or just those who used violence.
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. The location of the latter slave trade primarily occurred in the Danish West Indies 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, with some more severe than others. After many years of slavery in the Danish West Indies, Christian VII decided to abolish slave trading.
While the Vikings are perhaps best known for accumulating wealth by plunder, tribute, and conquest, they were also skilled and successful traders. The Vikings developed several trading centres both in Scandinavia and abroad as well as a series of long-distance trading routes during the Viking Age. Viking trading centres and trade routes would bring tremendous wealth and plenty of exotic goods such as Arab coins, Chinese Silks, and Indian Gems. Vikings also established a "bullion economy" in which weighed silver, and to a lesser extent gold, was used as a means of exchange. Evidence for the centrality of trade and economy can be found in the criminal archaeological record through evidence of theft, counterfeit coins, and smuggling. The Viking economy and trade network also effectively helped rebuild the European economy after the fall of the Roman Empire
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.
Chattel slavery was a major part of society, culture and economy in the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258) of the Islamic Golden Age, which during its history included most of the Middle East. While slavery was an important part also of the preceding practice of slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), it was during the Abbasid Caliphate that the slave trade to the Muslim world reached a more permanent commercial industrial scale, establishing commercial slave trade routes that were to remain for centuries.
The Bukhara slave trade refers to the historical slave trade conducted in the city of Bukhara in Central Asia from antiquity until the 19th century. Bukhara and nearby Khiva were known as the major centers of slave trade in Central Asia for centuries until the completion of the Russian conquest of Central Asia in the late 19th century.
The Prague slave trade refers to the slave trade conducted between the Duchy of Bohemia and the Caliphate of Córdoba in Moorish al-Andalus in the Early Middle Ages. The Duchy's capital of Prague was the center of this slave trade, and internationally known as one of the biggest centers of slave trade in Europe at the time.
The Volga Bulgarian slave trade took place in the Volga Bulgar Emirate in Central Asia.
Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate refers to the chattel slavery taking place in the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), a period when the Islamic Caliphate was established and the Islamic conquest expanded outside of the Arabian Peninsula.
