Slave Markets

"Slave Market", Cairo, 1878
From G. Ebers' "Pictureseque Egypt Vol II" (1878), which has the following description of the market: "I must mention, as one of the ex-Kedive's best actions, the abolition of the slave trade, which was flourishing in Egypt only a short time since. Very few years have gone by since I myself was one of those who saw the court of an okella well supplied with the human commodity. I am only too glad to leave it to the artist to give a picture of the tragical scene, of which he was a spectator even before I myself was. [more...]

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

Slave sale from "Turkish Tyranny"
From a German woodcut of 1593, the sale of captured Christians as slaves. The prisoners are led in a coffle, before being stripped naked, examined, put through their paces under the whips of drivers, and then paid for. [more...]

Turkish slave market
This is a German woodcut from about 1532, showing a sale of European slaves by Turkish invaders. In this period, the Ottoman Turks occupied much of south eastern Europe, and had laid siege to Vienna in 1529. Their practice was to take slaves from the non-Muslim occupants of conquered territories, and the woodcut shows a sale or sharing out of slaves by armed Turkish soldiers. The slaves are naked, put through their paces by drivers with whips, before being placed in iron shackles like those held by the figure on the bottom left. [more...]