Sourcing Slaves

Cook, G; Lee, S; Raffield, B; Stone, E; Webster, J

doi:10.1093/9780197551295.003.0006

Sourcing Slaves

Downloads

Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.

Abstract

This chapter examines how enslaved peoples from different periods, regions, and social contexts came to be enslaved. The coverage ranges through Roman, Viking, and Indigenous Native American contexts to Early American child slavery and a broader view of the West African slave trade. Whilst other studies have been conducted with a singular focus on these topics, discussing them in a single analysis provides a new perspective on the comparisons and contrasts of slave procurement and slave markets from a variety of milieus over time. This results in some surprising commonalities regarding this social and economic process, whilst also highlighting significant differences. A key commonality, from the Roman era through the nineteenth century, is shown to be a paucity of physical remains of slave markets and other points of sale. The sheer volume of the Transatlantic slave trade, however, was such that the evidential base here is considerably higher.