Arab Slave Trade in Africa

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Centuries of Arab Slave Trade

Africa
The Arab slave trade involved some of the most horrendous atrocities known against Africans. While slavery in the United States (before 1865) is better known and perhaps more discussed, the Arab slave trade in Africa was just as brutal and dehumanizing.

Slavery has likely existed since the early days of human civilization, but in this lesson we will discuss the Arab slave trade in Africa, beginning in the 7th century on the African continent. Because the people enslaved came from a large number of different tribes, we will refer to them here simply as 'Africans', and 'Arabs' (though also African) as those doing the enslaving.


Islam Spreads
Around the year 633, a year after the death of Muhammad, Muslim armies took much of what today is Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, the North African coast, and parts of Iran and

urkey. In 650, under Caliph Uthman, the religious holy book Qur'an (also written as Koran), was codified. Muslims then and now believe it to contain the direct revelations from God through the prophet Muhammad. While Islam eventually forbid taking fellow Muslims as slaves, it did not forbid the taking of non-believers or those who opposed Islam.

Slavery as an organized venture in Africa began in Darfur in 652. To keep to the terms of a peace agreement, the Sudanese leader at the time was obliged to make a payment of several hundred African slaves per year to the Arab invaders. This continued for centuries, reaching up to 6000 slaves sent along the Red Sea route near the end of 18th century, the peak of the Arab slave trade.

African slaves were used for agriculture, labor, household help, or to be concubines or soldiers. It was only later (1870s-1960s) that the white European demand for cash crops (grain, cotton, coffee, sugar and tobacco) and ivory became major contributors to the demand for slaves.



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