Trans-Saharan slave trade

The trans-Saharan slave trade, also known as the Arab slave trade, was a slave trade in which slaves were mainly transported across the Sahara. Most were moved from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations; a small percentage went in the other direction.

Estimates of the total number of black slaves moved from sub-Saharan Africa to the Arab world range from 6 to 10 million, and the trans-Saharan trade routes conveyed a significant number of this total, with one estimate tallying around 7.2 million black slaves crossing the Sahara from the mid-7th century until the 20th century when it was abolished. The Arabs managed and operated the trans-Saharan slave trade, although Berbers were also actively involved.

Alongside sub-Saharan Africans, Turks, Iranians, Europeans and Berbers were among the people traded by the Arabs, with the trade being practised throughout the Arab world, primarily in Western Asia, North Africa, East Africa, and Europe.

Records of slave trading and transportation in the Sahara date as far back as the 3rd millennium BC during the reign of the Egyptian king Sneferu who crossed the fourth cataract of the Nile into what is today modern Sudan to capture slaves and send them north. These raids for prisoners of war, who subsequently became slaves, were a regular occurrence in the ancient Nile Valley and Africa. During times of conquest and after winning battles, the ancient Nubians were taken as slaves by the ancient Egyptians.

The Garamantes relied heavily on slave labor from sub-Saharan Africa. They used slaves in their own communities to construct and maintain underground irrigation systems known to Berbers as foggara. Ancient Greek historian Herodotus recorded in the 5th century BC that the Garamantes enslaved cave-dwelling Ethiopians, known as Troglodytae, chasing them with chariots.

In the early Roman Empire, the city of Lepcis established a slave market to buy and sell slaves from the Bantu African interior. In the 5th century AD, Roman Carthage was trading in black slaves brought across the Sahara. The empire imposed customs tax on the trade of slaves. Black slaves seem to have been valued as household slaves for their exotic appearance. Some historians argue that the scale of slave trade in this period may have been higher than medieval times due to the high demand for slaves in the Roman Empire. However the slave trade through the Sahara in antiquity may have been small and rare as Saharan trade didn't reach large dimensions until the Arabs and Berbers introduced large numbers of camels into the desert.

The Ancient Garamantian caravan trade route between the coast of Tripolitania across the Sahara to Lake Chad transported foremost circus animals, gold, cabochon and raw material for food processing and perfume manufacture, but also slaves; the African slave trade was however likely limited prior to the Islamic period, and African slaves appeared to have been few in the Roman Empire, where they were viewed as exotic luxury slaves.

Paul Lovejoy estimates that around 6 million black slaves were transported across the Sahara between the years 650 AD and 1500 AD. The trans-Saharan slave trade, established in Antiquity, continued during the Middle Ages. Following the early 8th-century conquest of North Africa, Arabs, Berbers, and other ethnic groups ventured into Sub-Saharan Africa first along the Nile Valley towards Nubia, and also across the Sahara towards West Africa. They were interested in the trans-Saharan trade, especially in slaves, as there was a constant demand for slaves in the eastern Arab nations and Constantinople. The Muslim slave traders distinguished themselves from the peoples on the other side of the Sahara, referring to these African populations as Zanj or Sudan meaning "black".