John Derbyshire offers a noteworthy column on a little noted subject: the slave trading of North African Muslims off the Barbary Coast which had its heyday in the 16th and 17th centuries but continued into the early 19th century. His data comes from Robert Davies' 2003 book, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800. Derbyshire's article is well worth a read, as are readers' comments on the Amazon website. Among other points Derbyshire makes is this one:
It was not race slavery, but nor was it indiscriminate. It was religious slavery. The human beings kidnapped and sold by the Barbary pirates were fair game because they were Christian. A Christian slave on the Barbary Coast could attain his freedom by converting to Islam, and many did so. . . .
Christians were captured by two methods. First, there was the seizing of ships by straightforward piracy. The ship itself became a prize along with its crew and passengers. Second, there were raids on the coasts of European countries. Spain, France, and Italy were worst affected, but the pirates sometimes ventured further afield. In 1627 they kidnapped 400 men and women from Iceland.
The victims in either case would be taken back to one of the Barbary ports — the main ones were Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli — and sold in a slave market, by auction. They ended up either as the domestic slaves of private persons, or as slaves owned by the state, to be put to work rowing galleys, or constructing public works.
Derbyshire concludes:
This whole terrible episode in European history has been forgotten. Is there any chance we might persuade the Muslim nations of North Africa to erect modest monuments to the million or so European Christians who suffered and died as slaves of their ancestors? My guess would be: no chance at all.