Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800

This is a study that digs deeply into this "other" slavery, the bondage of Europeans by north-African Muslims that flourished during the same centuries as the heyday of the trans-Atlantic trade from sub-Saharan Africa to the Americas. Here are explored--perhaps for the first time--the actual extent of Barbary Coast slavery, the dynamic relationship between master and slave, and the effects of this slaving on Italy, one of the slave takers' primary targets and victims.

Robert C. Davis is in the Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus.