Slave Markets

This section of my homesite is dedicated to the Slave Market, and the buying of slaves in general in the Old World (ie Europe, Asia and Africa only.) It complements the Coffles section, which shows ways of transporting slaves.

Paintings and Drawings

"The Babylonian Marriage Market" by Edwin Long
According to the Greek historian Herodotus, writing about Babylon: "In every village once a year all the girls of marriageable age used to be collected together in one place, while the men stood round them in a circle; an auctioneer then called each one in turn to stand up and offered her for sale, beginning with the best-looking and going on to the second best as soon as the first had been sold for a good price." [more...]

"Slave Market" by E.A. Hofmann

"Selling slaves in Rome" by J.L. Gerome (1886)

"Escrava Romana" (1894) by Oscar Pereira da Silva

"Slave girl for sale" by Jose Jimenez Aranda, 1892
In the Museum of Malaga. With a Greek inscription but a vaguely oriental carpet, this shares the "Greek Slave's" ambiguity between the Ancient and Orientalist worlds. Is she being exposed for sale during the Greek wars of independence from the Ottomans, or is she instead waiting to be bought in an Ancient Greek marketplace? [more...]

"La perla del mercader", Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma
Painted in 1884 and showing "The Pearl of the Merchant".

"Naked Slave with Tambourine" by Frank Buchser, 1880
Buchser visited Morocco several times before his visit of 1880, and painted general street scenes as well as this slave being displayed for sale. The Arabic inscription on the wall to her right reads "To be sold".

"Slave Market" by Gerome, 1866
J.L. Gerome painted the Slave Market in 1866. Describing a similar scene in Cairo, W.J. Muller wrote: [more...]

"In the Slave Market, Khartoum"
The slave woman being examined has a striking similarity to Gerome's 1866 "Slave Market" painting.

"Picking the Favourite" by Giulio Rosati

"The Aurut Bazaar or Slave Market" by Thomas Allom
From Thomas Allom's "Constantinople and the Scenery of Seven Churches of Asia", 1838 with text by Dr Robert Walsh, the chaplain to the British embassy in Constantinople. [more...]

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Documents

Bon's Seraglio - the Ottoman Sultan's harem in 1607: There is for this purpose a place in Constantinople, near the Bezisten, where every wednesday, in the open street, there are bought and sold slaves of all sorts, and every one may freely come to buy for their several uses; some for nurses, some for servants, and some for their lustful appetites ...
Dallaway's Constantinople, Ancient and Modern, 1797: The females of the seraglio are chiefly Georgian and Circassian slaves, selected from all that are either privately bought, or exposed to sale in the Avret Bazar, and, for many reasons, are admitted at an early age. We may readily conclude that an assemblage of native beauty so exquisite, does not exist in any other place ...

Links

The Slavegirl Auction: Totally Unsolicited Advice for Filmmakers from Bondagerotica.com.

Dr Mabus' site The Crypt includes pages about female slaves in antiquity and in the Islamic world which include many pictures of slave sales.

Slave trading today

Anti-Slavery International campaigns against modern slavery of the non-consensual variety and needs your support. As well as human trafficking which amounts to quasi-slavery or bonded labour, chattel slavery is on the increase again in East Africa.

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