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The Khazar slave trade took place in the Khazar Khaganate in Central Asia (in modern Kazakhstan).
The Khazar Khaganate was a buffer state between Europe and the Muslim world and played a major part in the trade between Europe and the Middle East between the 8th and 10th centuries, and slaves were one of the main goods. The Khazar slave trade was one of the major routes of the human trafficking of saqaliba slaves from Europe to the Muslim world, between the 8th-century until the 10th century, when it was replaced by the Volga Bulgarian slave trade.
The Khazar Khaganate had initially been an enemy of the Umayyad Caliphate. In the late 8th century however, the Khazar Khaganate made peace with the Abbasid Caliphate, and between circa 775 and circa 900 the state served a key role as the intermediary in trade between Europe and the Muslim world, in which the slave trade played a major part. [1]
The Khazar Khaganate played a key role for the viking trade route in the 8th and 9th-centuries: the Khazars bought slaves captured by the Vikings in Europe, and exported them to the Abbasid Caliphate of the Middle East via Iran. [2]
People taken captive during the viking raids in Western Europe, such as Ireland, could be sold to Moorish Spain via the Dublin slave trade [3] 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, Wolin, and Dublin; [4] until the early 10th-century, this trade route between Europe and the Abbasid Caliphate passed via the Khazar Kaghanate. [5]
The Magyar tribes were another supplier of slaves to the Khazar slave trade, and the Khazar reportedly bought slaves from the Magyars described as war captives. [6]
The Khazar did not only buy slaves from other people, but also conducted their own slave raids to supply slaves for their slave trade. To perform slave raids was a common practice among the Nomadic people of the Central Asian Steppe, and the Khazars conducted regular slave raids toward several neighboring peoples, among them particularly the Pechenegs, the Ghuzz, and the Burta peoples. [7]
The majority of the slaves trafficked to the Khazar Khaganate where exported to slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate, but there were also a slave market for domestic use in the Khazar Khaganate. Slaves bought for the domestic market were all officially categorized as pagans, since the Khazars did not formally approve of the enslavement of Monotheists (Christians, Jews or Muslims). [8] There were a market for slaves used as domestic servants, agricultural laborers, slave soldiers and other tasks within the Khazar Khaganate. [9]
Slaves bought for export were transported from the Khazar Khaganate to either the Black Sea slave trade in the west via the Black Sea port of Kerch, or east from the capital of Atil via the Caspian Sea to Central Asia and from there to the Caliphate. [10]
The Khazar slave trade flourished in the 9th century until a crisis occurred during the Anarchy at Samarra which destabilized the Caliphate during the 860s, and the dirham found in Europe diminished.
In the early 10th century, the trade of saqaliba slaves from Europe to the Caliphate was redirected, and the Khazar slave trade was replaced by the Volga Bulgarian slave trade. [11] During the 10th century, the vikings instead sold their captives to Volga Bulgaria, who exported them by caravan around the Khazar Khaganate to the Abbasid Caliphate via the Samanid slave trade in Central Asia instead, and the Arab silver dirham found in Europe now came from the Samanid Empire rather than directly from the Abbasid Caliphate. [12]
The Khazar Khaganate initially reacted to this change by making Volga Bulgaria their tributary state in order to continue to profit by the slave trade to the Caliphate, [13] but it resulted in Volga Bulgaria converting to Islam in the 920s and becoming directly aligned with the Caliphate. The Volga Bulgarian slave trade and its connection with the slave trade via Bukhara to the Caliphate continued to the Mongol invasions of the 13th-century.
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. Known to have been situated on the Silk Road, in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, 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 first Slavic slaves and then, similarly to the semantic development of the term in other West-European languages, foreign slaves in general.
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.
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.
Slavery was a practice throughout Al-Andalus and the Iberian Peninsula between the 8th-century and the 15th century. This includes the periods of the Emirate of Córdoba (756–929), the Caliphate of Córdoba (929–1031), the Taifas, Almoravid rule (1085–1145), Almohad rule (1147–1238), and the Emirate of Granada (1232–1492).
Chattel slavery was a major part of society, culture and economy in the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), which during its history included most of the Middle East. While slavery was an important part also of the preceding practice of 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 Venetian slave trade refers to the slave trade conducted by the Republic of Venice, primarily from the Early Middle Ages to the Late Middle Ages. The slave trade was a contributing factor to the early prosperity of the young Republic of Venice as a major trading empire in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Genoese slave trade refers to the slave trade conducted by the Republic of Genoa, which was a major business during primarily the Middle Ages.
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.