SLAVE HUNTING AND SLAVE REDEMPTION AS A BUSINESS ENTERPRISE: THE NORTHERN

BLACK SEA REGION IN THE SIXTEENTH TO SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

Author(s): DARIUSZ KOODZIEJCZYK
Source: Oriente Moderno, Nuova serie, Anno 25 (86), Nr. 1, THE OTTOMANS AND TRADE (2006),
pp. 149-159
Published by: Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino
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DARIUSZ KOLODZIEJCZYK
(WARSAW
UNIVERSITY)

SLAVEHUNTING AND SLAVEREDEMPTION

AS A BUSINESS ENTERPRISE:
THE NORTHERN BLACK SEAREGION
INTHE SIXTEENTH TO SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
like to begin my articlewith what I regard as an inspiringquote from
Ishould
Alan Fisher's history of theCrimea:
From 1468, the timeof thefirstrecordedTatar raid in thenorthern
steppe,

until

almost

annual

north

the end of the seventeenth

searching

into

forays
for captives

century, Tatar

Slavic

raiders made

communities

agricultural
to sell as slaves. It is understandable

in

the
that

Slavic historiansdescribe theseeventswith dismay; yet viewed froma

less emotional

or nationalistic

seen as a very sucessful

economic

perspective,
activity

these

slave

raids

can

the means

that produced

which theTatars developed a livelyurban and cultural society.1

be
by

I fullyagreewith this somewhat provocative opinion, although I seriouslydoubt

that today, in the era of "political correctness", any American historian would
dare towrite such a sentencewith regard to the trade in black slaves across the
Atlantic.

It goes without saying that slavery in earlymodern timeswas considered

something

"normal"

by

most

contemporaries.

It also

had

long

tradition

from

antiquity onwards. Therefore, while writing about the institutionof slavery,we

should perhaps avoid the use of modern-day judgements. On the other hand,
this does not mean that the people concerned were indifferentto the fate of
their relatives.

Tatar raids leftdeep and traumatic traces in the collective memory of the
East European peasantry. As late as 1948, school children from south-eastern
Poland were asked to collect "interesting stories" from the past of theirvillages.
Most of these stories concerned theTatars, who had not been seen in that re
can be
gion since the 17th century!The long-lastingmemory of "Tatar horrors"
further confirmed by folklore and proverbs.2 Local tradition confirms that
1 - Alan W.

Institution Press, 1978, p. 27.

Fisher, The Crimean Tatars, Stanford, Hoover
2 - Franciszek Kotula, "Warownie chlopskie XVIIw. w ziemi przemyskiej i sanockiej" [Peasant
i
do
in the districts of Przemysl and Sanok in the 17th century], Studia Materialy
strongholds
Historii Wojskowos'ci, VIII, pt. 1 (1962), p. 73-149, especially p. 74-76. It should be stressed that
the region studied by Kotula was once quite remote from the border. More distant provinces

OM, XXV n.s. (LXXXVI), 1,2006, p. 149-159

C. A. Nallino - Roma
Istituto
per l'Oriente

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DARIUSZKOL ODZIEJCZYK

150

Tatars hunted mostly young men and women, while the elderlywere usually
spared. Small children,who could not walk and were not so valuable, were often
leftbehind by the captors, especiallywhen theywere pursued by Polish troops.
In a reportfrom 1672 we read:
In the fields and foreststhey [i.e. theTatars] leftbehind over 200
poor

children

ferred

whom

to take horses

not take
since everyone
they could
along
oxen rather than children. Carts were

and

pre
sent

from the town [ofZamosc] in order to bring themback alive.3

The author of a report dated 1624 saw masses of deserted and crying children
on the fields near Halyc. While being followed by Polish forces,Tatar and
re
Nogay raiders killed a few hundred captured men, apparently fearing their
was
men
to
volt. The Polish author concluded that it
better for these
die than
to be converted to heathenry or to die every hour formany years on the gal
leys

.4

For those abducted by theTatars, their captivitywas equal to civil death in

theirnative society. Following largehuman losses in 1624, theCatholic bishop
of Przemysl, Achacy Grochowski, allowed thosewhose husbands or wives had

been taken into slavery to remarry.5

According to one folk tale, captured Chris
tianswere kept in cages and fedwith milk and nuts.When theywere so fat that
theycould not walk, theywere roasted and eaten by theTatars.6
So far,only two authors have attempted to study in detail the demographic
losses of the region in a given period. The Polish historian,Maurycy Horn, based

his estimates on declarations (so called iuramentd) by Polish nobles, who regis
tered

the number

of abducted

subjects

in order

to receive

tax

exemptions.

For

obvious reasons these documents tend to be complete as itwas in the proper in

terestof the nobles to give as
a
large number of abducted peasants as possible.
On the other hand, they are not extant for all years and regions of the Polish
Lithuanian Commonwealth. Horn's research is focused on the densely popu
lated province ofRuthenia, centred inL'viv, leaving aside Volhynia, Podolia and
Ukraine proper. For the 29 years between 1605 and 1633 covered by his study,
of the Polish-Lithuanian
much more
3

exposed

Commonwealth,
to the Tatar raids.

Ambrozy Grabowski,
lected fromManuscripts],

located

to the south-east

(ed.), Ojczyste Spominki z r kopism w zebrane

Cracow, J. Cypcer, 1845, II, p. 183.

(today in Ukraine)
[Home Memoires

were

Col

4 - L'viv, L'vivs'ka Naukova

im. V. Stefanyka NAN Ukrajiny, fond 5 (Oss.), opys
Biblioteka
1, no. 11-475, p. 256, a report from the battle of Halve
(also known as the battle ofMartyn w)
on 20 June 1624, dated 22 June; for a
slightly different version, where the quoted fragment is
see Stanislaw

o
w
Przyleeki (ed.), Pamietniki
Koniecpolskich. Przyczynek do dziej
pol
[Memoirs about the Koniecpolski Family], Lw w [today L'viv], 1842, p. 250
258, especially p. 255-257.
Franciszek Kotula, "Warownie chlopskie", p. 75. The bishop's surname is
as Gro
5
misspelt
cholski.

missing,
skichXVII

wieku

Franciszek Kotula,

z w).

"Warownie

chlopskie",

p. 75

(a local tale from Staromiescie

near Rzes

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SLAVEHUNTING

the author estimated thatover 100,000 Ukrainians and Poles were abducted from
Ruthenia alone, adding another 100,000 for the remainingprovinces of theCom
monwealth.7 Thus we arrive at an annual average of 7,000 captives, abducted by
the Tatars from Poland-Lithuania. In order to get the full picture of demo
graphic losses,Horn proposed to increase these numbers by at least 30 per cent
to include the victims of famine and plagues resultingfrom theTatar raids.His
estimateswere accepted as realisticby other Polish historians.8
The Russian author,Aleksej Novosel'skij, based his estimate on declarations

by Russian

voevodas,

sent

every year

to Moscow

on

the request

of the

tzar.

In

this case, the voevodaswere definitelynot interested in giving high figures as that
would disclose their incompetence in protecting the district.According toNo
vosel'skij, the number of Russian subjects abducted into slavery in the firsthalf
of the 17th century amounted to 150,000 to 200,000 (Le. 3,000 to 4,000 per
year).While admitting that his calculations were ratherminimal, he estimated
that the demographic losses of Ukrainian territories,then belonging to Poland,

must have been much larger.9

Taking Novosel'skij's estimate,data fromvarious chronicles, and tax revenue
figuresfromCaffa, Halil Inalcik has calculated that the slave population imported
intoOttoman lands from Poland-Lithuania, Muscovy and Circassia, amounted
to over 10,000 a year in the period 1500-1650.10 Ifwe consider that a number
of slaves died while being transportedthrough the steppes,while many others re
mained in theCrimea, it can be safelystated that thedemographic losses ofMus
covy and Poland-Lithuania alone (leaving theCaucasus aside) approached 10,000
per year, that is twomillion in the two centuries between 1500-1700.11
-

w tatarskich z lat 1605-1633

na Rus Czerwonq,
Maurycy Horn, Skutki ekonomiczne najazd
in theYears 1605-1633],
of the Tatar Raids into Red Ruthenia
[The Economic Consequences
im.Ossolinskich,
Zaklad Narodowy
1964, p. 91-94.
Wrocl-Warsaw-Cracow,
7

8 - For the discussion

of this problem, see also Wojciech

Hensel, Jasyr z ziem dawnej Rzec
w
i
XV-XVII
from the
w.) [Slaves Originating
Krymie
Turcjii
(druga polowa
zypospolitej
in the Crimea and Turkey (Second Half of the Fifteenth to the Sev
Ancient Commonwealth
na

enteenth Centuries), unpublished doctoral thesis,Warsaw,

1977, p. 52-54.
s Tatarami v
A.
Bor'ba
pervoj polovine XVII
Alexej
Novosel'skij,
Moskovskogo gosudarstva
in
First
of
Tatars
the
Half
the
Seventeenth Cen
the
veka [The Struggle of Muscovy
against

Izd. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 1948.

tury],Moscow-Leningrad,
10 - Halil Inalcik and Donald Quataert
(eds.), An Economic
1300-1914,

Empire,
11 - A

Cambridge,

Cambridge

University

and Social History

Press, 1994, p. 285.

of the Ottoman

has been
and Muscovy
list of estimated losses of both Poland-Lithuania
chronological
Sea
in
Black
and
the
Fisher
his
article
Alan
for
the
1468-1694
years
"Muscovy
by
compiled
slave trade", Canadian-American
Slavic Studies, VI (1972), p. 575-594, especially p. 580-582.

and eyewitness reports as

this list is neither complete nor reliable. Chronological
as 19th-century historians' estimates, some of which are largely exaggerated, are treated as
aware of this, Fisher concluded
tomore realistic data
equal
proposed by modern scholars. Well
that it is impossible to arrive at the total number of captives seized by the Tatars in these

However,
well

raids, since all are not known, and many of the individual figures appear to be inflated by con
to
temporary sources , p. 582. If one gathers together the heterogeneous material gathered
one arrives at a
figure of circa threemillion captives.
gether by Fisher,

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DARIUSZ KOL ODZIEJCZYK

152

As a comparison, the estimates of Philip Curtin for theAtlantic slave trade

amount to less than 300,000 for the years 1451-1600, and less than 1.5million
for the 17th century, that ismuch less than twomillion for thewhole period.12
Admittedly, these estimateswere criticised by Joseph Inikori and other African
historians,who suggested that these numbers be at leastdoubled in order to give
the actual demographic losses of African societies resulting from slave wars,
one can safely con
plagues and the decline of local economy.13 Nevertheless,
clude that until 1700 theBlack Sea slave tradewas fullycomparable in sizewith
theAtlantic slave trade. Itwas only in the 18th century that the Black Sea slave
tradegradually declined while theAtlantic slave trade reached itspeak.
Playing with demographic figures can be a trickygame, especially if com

bined with politics. In 1972 an ominous book was published by the Bulgarian
historianChristo Gandev. By using the 15th-century
Ottoman surveyregisters,the
authormistakenly assumed that each mezraca was identical to a Bulgarian village,
whose inhabitantshad been slaughteredby theTurks. In conclusion he claimed
that almost 700,000 Bulgarians had been exterminated as a result of theOtto
man policy of "debulgarisation" (o6e36bJirap BaHe). Moreover, as the number
"discovered" by Gandev was almost 40 per cent of the estimated Bulgarian
population in the 15th century,he accused theTurks of reducing today's Bul
garian population by 40 per cent, that is 13million.14 His book played a promi
nent role in the anti-Turkish propaganda inBulgaria in the 1980s.
While treating such "scholarly" studies as a memento, we should not close
our eyes to the consequences of depopulation, affecting
large Slavic teritories in
Eastern Europe. If an "alternative" history ofUkraine were imaginable, perhaps
the

been

country's

historical

for the slave

development

would

have

looked

different

had

it not

trade.

The 17th-centuryEnglish observer Paul Rycaut claimed that theTatars were

hunters of the Turks, and the latter fed on their prey.15 Slave raids and slave
trade played a major role in the economic lifeof theCrimea. Admittedly, this
factor heavily influenced historical judgements by numerous Polish, Ukranian
and Russian scholars. Further, 19th-centuryRussian historiography used to le
gitimise the annexation of theCrimea by stressingthe "primitive"and "parasitic"
character of its economy as compared with themore "civilised" Russian empire.
12 - Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade. A Census, Madison,
University ofWisconsin
Press, 1969, p. 268.
13 For the discussion of this problem, see the chapter on the slave trade by Bronislaw No
wak inM. Tymowski,
(ed.), Historia Afiyki do poczatku XIX wieku [History of Africa to the
Early Nineteenth

Century], Wroclaw-Warsaw-Cracow,

Zaklad

Narodowy

im. Ossolinskich

skich, 1966, p. 1213-1219.

14 Christo Gandev, Balgarskata

narodnost prez 15 vek. Demograf ko i

etnografiko izsledvanie
in the Fifteenth Century.
and Ethnographic Research],
[Bulgarian Nationality
Demographic
i izkustvo, 1972, p. 55, 100, 385-90
Sofia, Nauka
(English summary).
The Tatar is to the Turk, as the giacall to the lion, who hunts and finds the prey for the
15
lion to overcome and feed on ,Paul Rycaut, The Present State
of theOttoman Empire, London,

J. Starkey and H.

Brome,

1668

(reprinted New York, Arno

Press, 1971), p. 59.

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SLAVEHUNTING

'53

A "postcolonial" deconstruction of thewhole of Russian 19th-century literature

has been recentlyproposed by Ewa Thompson in her book inspired by Edward
Said's Orientalism.16
The nationalist perspectivewas largelyinheritedby Soviet Russia and reached
itspeak in 1944 when theCrimean Tatars were deported to Central Asia. In a
book on the Crimea published by a Russian historian as late as 1987 we still
find familiar imperial arguments, supplemented by a quotation from Friedrich
Engels dated 1851 about the "progressive" role ofRussia in theMiddle East.17
It is easily understandable that some other historians, especially inTurkey and
in theWest, were engaged in defending the historical legacy of the Crimean
in a no

sometimes

Tatars,

less emotional

manner.

In the introduction

to the vol

ume published by a French team directed byAlexandre Bennigsen,we read: Nul

tatn'a pas t autant d cri ,honni et calomni que le khanat tatarde Crim e .18
Perhaps in thiscontextwe should read the statementbyAlan Fisher, quoted at the
on theCrimean Tatars appeared in
beginning of this article. Fisher'smonograph
theHoover Institutionserieson the "forgotten"nations of the SovietUnion.
Andrzej Dziubi ski estimates that a large expedition by theCrimean Tatars,
called seferand led by the khan, kalgay, or another high dignitary,might have
captured 5,000 to 6,000 prisoners.19The great campaigns of 1649, 1653 and
1667 ended with Polish-Tatar negotiations and the invaderswere formally al
lowed to leave along with theirhuman prey. In theseyears as well as during the
Polish-Ottoman wars of 1620-1621 and 1672-1676, the number of captives
may have been much larger.Fortunately, therewere also periods of peace inPol
relations.

ish-Crimean

Dziubi ski also stresses the importance of smaller raids called bes bas (liter
ally five heads), carried out by theNogays and Budjak Tatars. These raidswere
more difficult to detect by the Polish border guards and occurred many times a
yearwith no regard to the actual political climate betweenWarsaw and Bah e
saray.An average number of captives abducted in thisway from Poland-Lithua
nia was estimated byDziubi ski as 1,000 a year.20
Bistra

Cvetkova

16-Ewa
wood

Thompson,
Press, 2000.

describes

numerous

Imperial Knowledge.

slave

tradesmen,

who

the

accompanied

Russian Literature and Colonialism,

London,

Green

xanstvom v seredineXVII veka,

s
i
Gennadij A. Sanin, Otnosenija Rossii Ukrainy Krymskim
in theMid-Seventeenth
[The Relations of Russia and the Ukraine with the Crimean Khanate
17

1987, p. 15-16.
Century], Moscow, Nauka,
18 A. Bennigsen et al. (eds.), Le khanat de Crim e dans
Mouton
diteur, 1978, p. 1.
Topkapi, Paris-The Hague,
19 Andrzej Dziubi
ski, "Handel niewolnikami polskimi

lesArchives du Mus

e du Palais

de

i ruskimi w Turcji w XVI wieku i

slaves in 16th-century Turkey and its
jego organizacja"
III (1963), p. 36-49, especially
organisation], Zeszyty Historyczne Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego,
p. 42.
[The trade in Polish

20 - Dziubinski,

"Handel

Rzeczypospolitej",

p. 54.

niewolnikami

and Ruthenian

polskimi

i ruskimi". Cf. Hensel,

"Jasyr

z ziem
dawnej

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'54

DARIUSZKOLODZIEJCZYK

Ottoman army on itscampaigns.21According to Polish sources, the role of such

merchants was also crucial in organisingTatar raids intoPoland-Lithuania.
In the 1540s Sultan S leyman theMagnificent constantly accused the Polish
border commanders of raidingOttoman territories,and asked the Polish king to
punish them. In reply,one such commander, the starostaof Bar, Bernard Pret

wicz, prepared a lengthyreportwhich was read in the Polish diet in 1550. Pret
wicz accused theOttoman merchants fromAkkerman of being responsible for
theTatar slave raids.They went with them or sent their servantswhile others
lent horses to theTatars in return for half of their prey .22Among the horses

captured by Polish soldiers in numerous skirmisheswith the Budjak Tatars, al

most half belonged to theTurks fromAkkerman.23 In a royal document dated
1555 we read: There are many Turks who send Tatars supplied with their
horses and armour into our domains, and later share the profits in the fields ,24
this last expression referringto the fact that the division took place far from the
eyes of theOttoman police and customs officerswho might have viewed nega
tively the breaking of the peace treatyor the failure to pay taxes due by those in
volved in the slave trade.
Notwithstanding such effortsto escape the tax duties, theOttoman statewas

among the principal share holders in the Black Sea slave trade.According to
Pretwicz, the sultan's income from the slave trade inAkkerman and Ocakiv (Turk
ish z ) amounted to a few 100,000 ak e a year.25 Strikingly similar are the
numbers forCaffa established by Inalcik on the basis ofOttoman tax registers.
The slave tax collected inCaffa amounted to 620,000 ak e in 1520 and 650,000
ak e in 1529.26 The same author estimates the total state revenue from the slave
trade as approaching 100,000 gold florins (i.e. circa 6,000,000 ak e) in themid
16th century.27

The Ottoman tax systemconcerning the slave tradehas been already studied
by numerous authors, to mention only Berindei and Veinstein, Dziubinski,
Fisher,Hensel, Inalcik,Novicev, Sahillioglu and Uzun ar ih.28Yet, the relation
21 - Bistra Cvetkova,

v
"Robstvoto v Osmanskata
imperija i po-specialno
balgarskite zemi pod
in
the
Ottoman
in
the
[Slavery
empire, especially
Bulgarian lands under Turkish
rule], Istoriceski Pregled, XII
(1954), p. 82-100, especially p. 89.
na
22 - "Bernard Pretwicz i
jego apologia
sejmie 1550 r." [Bernard Pretwicz and his apology
in the diet of 1550], Biblioteka Warszawska,
1866, III, no. 7, p. 44-59, especially p. 49.
"Bernard Pretwicz i jego apologia", p. 53-57. The report by Pretwicz was
23
extensively used
ski in his article, "Handel niewolnikami polskimi i ruskimi".
by Dziubi
24 - Jest Turk w wiele, kt rzy na koniach swoich,
w
w pa stwa
swoja^ zbroja^ Tatar
tutaj
turska vlast"

nasze

wyprawuja^

a z nimi

sie. na polu korzy.cia_ dziela_ , quoted

p. 45.

from Hensel,

dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",
"Bernard Pretwicz i jego apologia", p. 49.
25
26
Inalcik, An Economic and Social History of theOttoman Empire, p. 283.
Halil
27
Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire. The Classical Age 1300-1600, New
and Nicholson,

Weidenfeld
28 - Mihnea
de Kefe",

Berindei

"Jasyr z ziem

York-London,

1973, p. 131.

and Gilles Veinstein,

"R glements de Siileyman 1er concernant le liva
russe et sovi
(1975), p. 57-104, especially p. 72-73;
tique, XVI

Cahiers du monde

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'55

SLAVEHUNTING

between

various

taxes

such

as

the pen

ik, g mr

k,

sr, resm-i mukarrer,

tamga,

resm-im h r, k pr tamgasi, resm-ik pr , bac-i ubur, resm-ige id, tota,dellallik,

bac-i pazar, bac-i tekrar,adet-i tezyin,and some other termsused by foreignob
serversisnot altogether clear and remains beyond the scope of this article.
Apart from the state and its functionaries (emins,miiltezims, etc.), numerous

Ottoman merchants throughout the empiremade profitson the slave trade. Be

sides the Black Sea ports and major trade centres such as Istanbul, Bursa,
Edirne, Damascus and Cairo, smaller towns had separate slavemarkets as well,
tomention only Xaskovo, Nova Zagora and Kazanlik in Bulgaria.29 In Istanbul
alone, no less than 2,000 people, men and women alike,were making their liv

ing by engaging in the slave trade as merchants, brokers, apprentices,gatekeepers,

watchmen and so on.30While in the 16th centurymost of the slave dealers had
been Jews, in the following period this profitable profession was apparently
dominated byMuslims.31

"R glements fiscaux et fiscalit de la province de Ben

and Gilles Veinstein,
1570", Cahiers du monde russe et sovi tique, XXII
(1981), p. 251-328,
especially
i ruskimi", p. 42-44;
"Handel niewolnikami
Dziubinski,
p. 254, 265, 295-296;
polskimi
w
a
szlakach Orientu. Handel
Imperium Osmanskim
Andrzej Dziubinski, Na
miedzy Polskq
XVI-XVIII
wieku [on the Routes of the Orient. The Trade between Poland and the Ottoman
Mihnea

Berindei

der-Aqkerman

in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries], Wroclaw, Wydawnictwo

Leololdinum,
Empire
1997, p. 208-210; Alan Fisher, "The sale of slaves in the Ottoman
empire: markets and state
taxes on slave sales, some
Bi
preliminary considerations", Bogazi i niversitesi Dergisi. Beseri
z ziem daw
limler Humanities, VI (1978), p. 149-174, especially p. 163-169; Hensel,
"Jasyr
Inalcik, Sources and Studies on the Ottoman Black Sea I
p. 59-70; Halil
nej Rzeczypospolitej",
The Customs Register ofCaffa, 1487-1490, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1996, p.
"Pencik. K istorii robstva v Osmanskoj
91-111,
143-146; Aron D. Novicev,
imperii" [Pen ik.
akademika
From the history of slavery in theOttoman
empire], Turcologica. Ksemidesjatiletiju
1976, p. 305-312; Halil Sahillioglu, "Slaves in the social and eco
Leningrad,
life of Bursa in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries", Turcica. Revue d' tudes
ar ih, Osmanli Dev
(1985), p. 43-112, especially p. 68-70; Ismail Hakki Uzun
turques, XVII
len Teskil tindan Kapukulu Ocaklari IAcemi Ocagi ve Yeni eri Ocagi, Ankara, T rkTarih Ku
rumu, 1943, especially p. 89-90.

A.N. Kononova,
nomic

Cvetkova, "Robstvoto v Osmanskata

imperija", p. 90.
- A valuable
was left
a 17th
of
the
Istanbul
by
description
guild of slave dealers (esirciyan)
em
elebi, see Fisher, "The sale of slaves in the Ottoman
traveller, Evliya
century Ottoman

29

30

pire", p. 156-157.
from Evliya's description as well as the reports by western observers, Robert
31 Departing
Mantran has claimed that in the 17th century the slave trade in Istanbul was stillmonopolised
si cle, Paris, L'Ins
see Robert Mantran,
Istanbul dans la seconde moiti du XVIIe
by the Jews,
titut Fran ais d'Arch ologie d' Istanbul, 1962, p. 506-507. Yet, by quoting a mid-17th-cen

was not the case. On the con

tury list of slave dealers, Alan Fisher has demonstrated that this
to
from
the slave trade, see Fisher,
non-Muslims
eliminate
Ottoman
authorities
tried
the
trary,

toMinna Rozen,
am very
sale of slaves in the Ottoman
empire", p. 157-160. I
grateful
has drawn my attention to the fact that 17th-century Jewish sources do not reflect any
involvement in the slave trade on the part of Jews, unlike the 16th-century ones which are full
it is hard to believe that Jews were completely banned from this
of such references. Although
at least much less apparent as slave dealers for a certain period of
were
profitable activity, they
time.
"The

who

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i56

DARIUSZKOL ODZIEJCZYK

The ethno-religious composition of those profiting from the slave tradewas

not limited to Jews and Muslims. In the late 15th century, the Italians from
Caffa were often accused of sellingChristian slaves toTurkey.32 Two centuries

later, in 1658, a French merchant, Louis d'Arvieux, travelled from Izmir toAl
exandria on an English ship which had been hired togetherwith the crew by
Turkish slavemerchants. The young Frenchman was apparently fascinated by
the

"cargo":

Pour les filles elles toient peu pr s de m me

pas avoir dix-huit
paroissoit
et des Circassiennes,

vites,

leurs courses,
Caffa.

Elles

et

qu'ils
toient bien

ans;

c'

toient des Polonoises,

les Tartatres
que
toient venues vendre
faites et

ge, la plus vielle ne

parfaitement

avoient

des Mosco
enlev

Constantinople
belles, su-tour

es dans
ou
les Cir

cassiennes.33

r ties and leur pudding

Although he sharply criticised the English viandes
d testable ,he did not mind his carriers'occupation and even called theEnglish
un

captain

tr s-honn

te homme

.34

As was the case in theAfrican slave trade, local nativemerchants also partici
pated in the export of human cargo. The institutionof slaveryexisted in Poland
Lithuania as well, although itdid not play a great economic role.While the ex
port of Christians toTurkey was strictlyforbidden, other slaves, especiallyMus
lim Tatars, might have been legally exported. Further, the Polish border au
thorities often arrested Jews and Armenians, who carried children with them,
A Polish no
apparently kidnapped or even bought from their foster-fathers.35
bleman even deliberately lefthis minor cousin in a village exposed to a Tatar
raid inorder to inherither bequest, although this isperhaps not a typicalevent.36
Unlike the black slaves transported across theAtlantic, at least some Slavic
slaves, abducted by theTatars and Turks, might have conceived of a redemption
and return to theirhome countries. This applied especially to the nobles whose
- Marian

Malo wist, Kaffa - kolonia genuenska na Krymie iproblem wschodni w latach 1453
- the
in the Crimea
Genoese Colony
in the Years
and the Eastern Question
1475 [Caffa
w Historii,
Milosnik
Warsaw,
1453-1475],
1947, p. 318; cf.Marian Malowist,
Towarzystwo
Wsch d a Zach d Europy w XIII-XVJ wieku.
Konfrontacja struktur spoleczno-gospodarczych [East
32

and West

of Europe

Economic

Structures], Warsaw,

33

in the Thirteenth

- Louis
D'Arvieux, M

PWN,

to the Sixteenth Centuries.

35

D'Arvieux, M
Dziubiriski,

of Socio

moires du chevalier d'Arvieux,

consul d'Alep, d'Alger, de Tripoli, et autres

152.
34

A Confrontation

1973, p. 185.
la Porte,
envoy extraordinaire du Roy
chelles du Levant, Paris, C.J.B. Delespine,
1735,1, p.

moires, p. 153.
"Handel

niewolnikami

polskimi

i ruskimski", p. 45-46; Dziubinski,

Na

szla

kach Orientu, p. 204-206.

z
Lozi
Hensel,
ski, Prawem i
"Jasyr ziem dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",
p. 150; Wladyslaw
lewem. Obyczaje na Czerwonej Rusi w pierwszej
So
polowie XVII wieku [By Right and Might.
in Red Ruthenia
cial Customs
in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century], Lwow
(today

36-

L'viv), H. Altenberg,

1904,1, p. 166.

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SLAVEHUNTING

157

relativeswere able and willing to pay for their freedom.The ransom usually ex
ceeded

an

slave market

average

price

as the Crimean

or Ottoman

merchant,

who

often had towait foryearswhile feeding and housing his prisoner until the de
manded sum was delivered, treated this transaction as a profitable capital in
vestment.37Rich Polish magnates often tried to pass for ordinary soldiers as they
knew that the ransom was proportional to the captive's wealth and position.
Peasant captives, on the other hand, tried to pass for nobles in order to receive
better

treatment.38

Many redemptionswere made possible byArmenian merchants who acted as

intermediariesbetween the twoworlds and spoke theTurkic language.A Polish
priest and historian ofArmenian origin, Sadok Barccz, presented such activity in
quite a sentimentalway in his book published in themid-19th century: They
[i.e. the Polish Armenians] returnedhusbands to longingwives, fathers to their

crying children, and relatives and friends to themourning families, oftenwith

no rewardbut the satisfactionof theirconscience .39
Though such idealisticmotives cannot be excluded, often one finds a quite
differentpicture. In theArmenian court registerfrom Lwow (modern L'viv) I
found the documentation of a lawsuitwhich took place in 1679. A Polish noble,
Aleksander

Tatomir,

sued

an Armenian

woman,

Anna

Szahinowa,

whose

hus

band, a residentmerchant fromLwow, had undertaken to deliverMrs Tatomir

from captivity in theCrimea. The ransom, already paid by Tatomir, amounted
to 400 lion thalers (Polish
taldrylewkowe,Turkish esedigurus).Mrs Szahinowa,
who was acting as her husband's agent during his absence from Lwow, had
promised thatMrs Tatomir would return by Christmas. As the term elapsed,
Tatomir lost his patience and demanded either his wife or money back. He
added that he would not pay another penny as he was not willing to loose his
entire wealth.40

A Polish 16th-century envoy to the Khan, Marcin Broniowski, noted that

slaves played a great role in agriculture,husbandry and urban economy in the
Crimea.41 In the following century,Evliya elebi estimated the number ofCos
sack (i.e. Ukrainian) captives in theCrimea as 400,000 men, 400,000 women
and 300,000 children.42Although Evliya elebi's numbers cannot, as usual, be
37
38
39

Hensel,

"Jasyr

z ziem
dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",

p. 133.

Hensel,

z
"Jasyr ziem dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",

p. 106.

Baracz, Zywoty slawnych Ormian w Polsce [Biographies of Famous

im Ossoli
Lwow (today LViv), Zaklad
skich, 1856, p. 115; Hensel,

Sadok

Poland],

p. 145-147.
dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",
40
L'viv, Central'nyj derzavnyj istoryrnyj arxiv Ukrajiny u L'vovi, Mahistrat
fond 52, opys 2, no. 531 (Knyha induktiv virmens'koho sudu), p. 1426-1429.
41 - Martini

Russian

Armenians

in

z
"Jasyr ziem
mista

L'vova,

1595, p. 17;
descriptio, Cologne, Officina Birckmannica,
i
VI (1867), p. 333-367,
Odesskago Obscestva Istorii Drevnostej,
z
p. 188.
"Jasyr ziem dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",

Broniovii...Tartariae

translation

inZapiski

especially p. 357; cf.Hensel,

1928, p. 601; Polish transla
elebi, Seyahatname, VII, Istanbul, Ikdam Matbaasi,
Evliya
tion inZygmunt Abrahamowicz
(ed.), Ksi gapodr
y Ewliji Czelebiego (Wyb r),Warsaw, Ksiazka
1969, p. 279.
iWiedza,

42

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i58

DARIusz KOL ODZIEJCZYK

trusted,his general impression of the great number of slaves in the Crimean

Khanate was undoubtedly true.
It ismuch harder to trace the role of slaves in theOttoman empire itself.
Much has been written about the kui System,the palace and janissarycorps.These
slaves,however, constituteda tinyprivilegedminority among the formercaptives.
Another

sector

"reserved"

for slaves,

this

time

the most

unlucky

ones,

was

the galley fleet, numbering tens of thousands of oarsmen. In 1622 a galley crew,
headed by a Polish nobleman, rioted offLesbos and managed to escape to Italy.
The oarsmen numbered 22 Turks, condemned forvarious crimes, and 220 Chris
tians.Among theseChristians therewere threeGreeks, two Englishmen and one
Italian,while all the others originated fromUkraine orMuscovy.43
Most of the slaveswent neither to the palace nor to the galleys.According to
Paul Rycaut, the bulk of captives imported intoOttoman lands,were used to
compensate for losses due to epidemics and wars.44While
stress

scholars

the

importance

of slaves

in Ottoman

society,

numerous modern

such

statements

are

rarelyfollowed by any particular research.According toWojciech Hensel, the use

of slave labour in theOttoman economy usually escapes scholars' attention.45
Halil Inalcik admits that due to frequentmanumissions slaveswho became in
mass of the reaya it is hard to trace their fate as a separate
tegrated into the
group.

At leastwe know that theywere not eaten by theTatars. Some of themwere

used as agriculturalworkers on the imperial estates (the so-called ortak i kullari,
sharecropper slaves).47Most of the slaves acquired by private individuals entered
theOttoman urban economy. To date themost meticulous researchon the place
of slaves inOttoman society has been done by Halil Sahillioglu on the basis of
theBursa kadi and census registers.According to his estimates, slaves consituted
one fifth to one fourth of the city's population.48 In addition, no less than 15
- Marek

Jakimowski, "Opisanie kr tkie zdobycia przesniejszej galery alexandryjskiej w por

cie u Metelliny"
[Short description of a seizure of a superb Alexandrian galley in the harbour of
in Ambroiy Grabowski
Midilli]
(ed.), Starozytno.ci historyczne polskie, Cracow, Jozef Czech,
event see Jerzy
1840, p. 470-476,
especially p. 471 and 474. On the uncertain dating of this
43

Pertek, "Marek Jakimowski" in Polski Slownik Biograficzny [Polish Biographical Dictionary],

X, Wroclaw,
1962-1964, p. 332.
44 - Many
think, were it not for the abundant supplies of slaves, which daily come from the
Black Sea (as before we have declared) considering the summer
slaughters of the plague, and
destructions ofwar, theTurk would have little cause to boast of the vast numbers of his people
,
Rycaut, The Present State of theOttoman Empire, p. 81.
z
45
Hensel,
p. 172.
"Jasyr ziem dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",
- Halil
46
Inalcik, "Servile labor in the Ottoman
empire", inAbraham
B

Ascher, Tibor Halasi

la K. Kiraly

(eds.), The Mutual Effects of thehlamic and theJudeo-Christian Worlds: The

East European Pattern, Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn College Press, 1979, p. 25-52, especially p.
34 and 41. See also Inalcik, An Economic and Social History of theOttoman Empire, p. 284.
Kun,

z
Hensel,
p. 173; Inalcik, "Servile labor in theOt
"Jasyr ziem dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",
toman
empire", p. 27-30; Sahillioglu, "Slaves in the social and economic life of Bursa", p. 46.
48
Sahillioglu, "Slaves in the social and economic life of Bursa", p. 95.
47

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SLAVEHUNTING

With
per cent of inhabitantswere freedmen.49
was

certainly

major

centre

for slave

labour.

itsdeveloped silk industryBursa

Nevertheless,

a substantial

number

of slaves lived and worked in otherOttoman cities aswell.

Sahillioglu's research covers a relativelyearlyperiod between 1456 and 1513.
In thatperiod slaves fromEastern Europe had only recentlybegun to appear on
theOttoman market. Yet, in the latest court registerstudied by Sahillioglu they
already constituted the largestgroup. Among 514 slaves registered in Bursa be
tween 1511 and 1513, as many as 239 were Rus. This term ismistranslated as
"Russians" in theEnglish version of the article.Though some of theseRus might
indeed have been Russians, most of themwere apparentlyUkrainians, subjects
of the Polish king. This is confirmed by the fact thatmost Tatar raids in the
early 16th centurywere directed against Poland-Lithuania, and not againstMus
covy.Along with 19 Poles theseRus amounted to over 50 per cent of all regis
tered

slaves.50

Unlike the black slaves inAmerica, bound for generations to the same plan
tations and stigmatisedby racial prejudice, Slavic slaves in theOttoman empire,
men and women alike, easily assimilated intoMuslim society, ifnot in the first,
then in the second generation. The better a given group assimilates, the lessvisi
ble itbecomes - this is also the reasonwhy the history ofOttoman slavery is so
difficult to trace.One might even suggest that formany East European peasants,

accustomed to serfdom and the corv e, new urban life in theMuslim envi
ronmentmight have been easier and better.51Yet, such argumentsmay be risky:
it is like declaring that itwas good forAfricans to be kidnapped by slave hunters
since theirdescendants today carryAmerican passports.
To conclude, apart from its impact on the development of Eastern Europe,
at least two aspects of the Black Sea slave trade deserve to be recognised as cru
cial forOttoman economic history.The firstone concerns the effectof absorb

ing over twomillion people intoOttoman society.The second is related to the

purely financial benefits from the slave trade and its influence (or lack of influ
ence) on capital formation.This lastquestion already has a long tradition in the
historiography of theAtlantic slave trade, tomention only EricWilliams's fa
mous thesison the impact of this trade on the IndustrialRevolution.52 These is
sues are certainlynot easily calculable. Yet, theydefinitelymerit furtherresearch.

49

Sahillioglu,

"Slaves

in the social and economic

life of Bursa", p. 86-87.

life of Bursa", table VII on p. 104.

Sahillioglu,
- An
refers to a "confusing"
chronicle
18th
Ukrainian
century
by Samujil Velycko
early
led by the ataman Ivan Sirko invaded the
story under the date of 1675: when the Cossacks

50

"Slaves

in the social and economic

51

to return to their homeland,

prisoners, they simply refused
u kryms'komu xanstvi" [On the
"Pro
Kryms'kyj,
dolju ukrajins'kyx polonjanykiv
in Ahatanhel Kryms'kyj, Studiji z Kry
fate of Ukrainian prisoners in the Crimean Khanate],

Crimea

and delivered Ukrainian

see Ahatanhel

muy Kiev, 1930, p. 14-17.

- Eric
52
Williams,
Capitalism
1944.

and Slavery, Chapel

Hill, University

of South Carolina

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Press,