Figure 1.--

Some historians of the slave trade believe that more Africans were captured and sent to the Muslim world (primarily Arab countries and Persia) than were shipped to the entire Western Hemisphere by Europans. The Eastern Trade began earlier and lasted much longer than the Atlantic slave trade. Yet the human evidence of the slave trade is not readily apparent in Arab countries, Iran, or Turkey. Given the number enslaved Africans, one has to ask, what happened to those people. If as if many historians claim, millions of Africans were enslaved and sold as slaves in the Middle East, you would expect to see sunstantial numbers of Africans or Multtoes as in the Americas. One assessment claims, "Yet the near east today has almost no descendants of these slaves. Their treatment – obviously so for the thousands who were made harem guards but apparently also for the rest – seems not to have been of a kind to favour it. The much greater ease of obtaining fresh slaves, relative to any part of the western hemisphere, seems highly pertinent to this." We know tha huge numbers of Africans were killed by Arab slavers in the process of obtaining and transporting slaves. The question now becomes what happened to the large number of slaves that reached the Arab slave markets. And also what hapened to their descendents. One source of information is DNA. We note one summary, "Genetic studies of the Arabian Peninsula are scarce even though the region was the center of ancient trade routes and empires and may have been the southern corridor for the earliest human migration from Africa to Asia. A total of 120 mtDNA Saudi Arab lineages were analyzed for HVSI/II sequences and for haplogroup confirmatory coding diagnostic positions. A phylogeny of the most abundant haplogroup (preHV)1 (R0a) was constructed based on 13 whole mtDNA genomes. RESULTS: The Saudi Arabian group showed greatest similarity to other Arabian Peninsula populations (Bedouin from the Negev desert and Yemeni) and to Levantine populations. Nearly all the main western Asia haplogroups were detected in the Saudi sample, including the rare U9 clade. Saudi Arabs had only a minority sub-Saharan Africa component (7%), similar to the specific North-African contribution (5%). In addition, a small Indian influence (3%) was also detected. CONCLUSION: The majority of the Saudi-Arab mitochondrial DNA lineages (85%) have a western Asia provenance. Although the still large confidence intervals, the coalescence and phylogeography of (preHV)1 haplogroup (accounting for 18 % of Saudi Arabian lineages) matches a Neolithic expansion in Saudi Arabia." [Abu-Amerro, et. al.] Here we sun-Saharan componers in Saudi Arabia (7 prcent) and North Africa (5 percent). We are not entirely sure how to interpret this in terms of the interpreting the large numbers of Africans that were sold in Middle Eastern slave markets.

Dimensions

Some historians of the slave trade believe that more Africans were captured and sent to the Muslim world (primarily Arab countries and Persia) than were shipped to the entire Western Hemisphere by Europans. The Eastern Trade began earlier and lasted much longer than the Atlantic slave trade.

Phyical Characteristics

Despite the large numbers of cative Africans transported to the Muslim world, the human evidence of the slave trade is not readily apparent in Arab countries, Iran, or Turkey. This varies from country to country. We see somewhat more people in some Arab countries with African chracteristic than others. Thus appeaes to be klargely a geograophic matter . The countries we have noted with more African characteristics include (Egypt, Sudan, and Yemen).

Small Number of Africans in the Middle Eastern Population

Given the number enslaved Africans, one has to ask, what happened to those people. If as if many historians claim, millions of Africans were enslaved and sold as slaves in the Middle East, you would expect to see sunstantial numbers of Africans or Multtoes as in the Americas. This was especially true because the opulation of the Middle East was only about 10 million people (1800). [Farron] It would have been much smaller earlier when the Arab slave trade began (8th century). So substantial transport of ensklaved Africans could have a much greater impact than in the 19th century.

DNA Data

Phsical appearance is evidence, but can be misleading. Even more conclusive is DNA evidence. One source of information is DNA. We note one summary, "Genetic studies of the Arabian Peninsula are scarce even though the region was the center of ancient trade routes and empires and may have been the southern corridor for the earliest human migration from Africa to Asia. A total of 120 mtDNA Saudi Arab lineages were analyzed for HVSI/II sequences and for haplogroup confirmatory coding diagnostic positions. A phylogeny of the most abundant haplogroup (preHV)1 (R0a) was constructed based on 13 whole mtDNA genomes. RESULTS: The Saudi Arabian group showed greatest similarity to other Arabian Peninsula populations (Bedouin from the Negev desert and Yemeni) and to Levantine populations. Nearly all the main western Asia haplogroups were detected in the Saudi sample, including the rare U9 clade. Saudi Arabs had only a minority sub-Saharan Africa component (7%), similar to the specific North-African contribution (5%). In addition, a small Indian influence (3%) was also detected. CONCLUSION: The majority of the Saudi-Arab mitochondrial DNA lineages (85%) have a western Asia provenance. Although the still large confidence intervals, the coalescence and phylogeography of (preHV)1 haplogroup (accounting for 18 % of Saudi Arabian lineages) matches a Neolithic expansion in Saudi Arabia." [Abu-Amerro, et. al.] Here we sun-Saharan componers in Saudi Arabia (7 prcent) and North Africa (5 percent). We are not entirely sure how to interpret this in terms of the interpreting the large numbers of Africans that were sold in Middle Eastern slave markets.

Treatment

The small number of Middle Eastern people with African characteruistics and the small number of people with African DNA suggests that not very many African captives were transported to the Middle East. But there is evidence that that large numbers of Africans were transported. One assessment claims, "Yet the near east today has almost no descendants of these slaves. Their treatment – obviously so for the thousands who were made harem guards but apparently also for the rest – seems not to have been of a kind to favour it. The much greater ease of obtaining fresh slaves, relative to any part of the western hemisphere, seems highly pertinent to this." The source here says 'ease', but a comcmitant factior was a lower price. We know tha huge numbers of Africans were killed by Arab slavers in the process of obtaining and transporting slaves. The question now becomes what happened to the large number of slaves that reached the Arab slave markets. And also what hapened to their descendents. The only reason given the number of Africans Arab slavers seized in Africa and trasported to the Middle East that there is not a much larger population of African ethnicity African is that there must have been an exceptionally high slavce mortality rate. This seems to have been the case thrioughout the Middle East. One source reports concerning Persia, “The high mortality rate which overtook these coloured men in Persia prevented them forming an important element of the population.” [Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. I, p. 36.] A report on North Africa and Iraq describes the mistreatment of African slave workers. One source reports, “Of the Saharan salt mines it is said that no slave lived for more than five years;” and “the black slave gangs that toiled in the salt flats of Basra [Iraq] . . . numbering some tens of thousands . . . were fed, we are told, on a few handfuls of flour, semolina, and dates.” [Lewis, pp. 14, 56.] It should be noted that in Middle Eastern countries, African slaves were not used primarily as field hands as was the case in the Americas. This was because the population of most countries was primarily made up of a rural peasantry that did most of the agricultural labor. Slaves were commonly used in particularly dangerous or arduous activities like mining. The mortality of slaves was not just based on the work enviroment and their care but restrictions on sexual activity. Many males wre castrated before or after reaching the Middle East. This was in the era before modern meducine. As a result, there were large mortalities even above the mortalities associting with the capture and transport process. Castration was done in two ways, either cutting off the testickles or the penis. White enuchas commonly had their tesyickes cut off. Africans were subjected “to the most radical form of castration . . . level with the abdomen . . . based on the assumption that blacks had an ungovernable sexual appetite;” “every [black] eunuch represented at the very least 200 Sudanese done to death;” and at the beginning of the tenth century the caliph of Baghdad alone had 7,000 black eunuchs. [Segal, pp. 41, 52, and 156.] Another major factor was the killing of African babies. Middle Easter slave masters did not often permit 'casual' actual marriages were very rate. Almost all children fathered by Africans were killed on birth. The vast majority of the babies born to African mothers were killed, but a few babies were allowed to live. We know this because of a variety of historical accounts of the killing. Other reports confirm this. One report recounts that of the 3,000 female slaves emancipated in Zanzibar (1860), there were only 5 percent that had ever given birth. [Sheriff 1987: 59.] Many of the children born to slave women were murdered. In 1856, the Anti-Slave Reporter observed that in Constantinople, the murder of the babies of black slave women was practiced “as a matter of course and without the least remorse.” As a result, in Constantinople, “it was commonplace for Turkish gentlemen to have numerous [black] concubines, [but] it was rare to see a mulatto.” [6]

Sources

Abu-Amero KK, González AM, Larruga JM, Bosley TM, and Cabrera VM. "Eurasian and African mitochondrial DNA influences in the Saudi Arabian population," BMC Evol Biol. (March 2007) 1;7:32. The research was done at the Mitochondrial Research Laboratory, Department of Genetics, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Farron, Stephen. "Black slavery in the Middle East," American Renaissance (February 24, 2017). The 10 million figure is an estimate. There is little solid data. Fallon has based his 1800 figure on a 1798, the first known census in the Middle East. The Census reported 2.4 million people in Egypt. Farron estimated that Egyot was about a quarter of the region's population, leading to the 10 million estimate. He was talking about the Middle East and North Africa from Morocco east to Persia (Iran).

Laffin, John. The Arabs as Master Slavers (1982).

Lewis, Bernard. Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. (1990).

Segal, Ronald.: Islam’s Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora (2001).

Sheriff, Abdul. Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy (1987).

Encyclopedia of Islam 2nd ed. Vil, I (1960).

Created: 8:47 AM 6/25/2018
Last updated: 8:48 AM 6/25/2018