Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry

by Bernard Lewis

  In 1757 a new sultan, Sidi Muhammad III, came to the throne. He decided to disband the black troops and rely instead on Arabs. With a promise of royal favor, he induced the blacks to come to Larache with their families and worldly possessions. There he had them surrounded by Arab tribesmen, to whom he gave their possessions as booty and the black soldiers, their wives, and their children as slaves. "I make you a gift," he said, "of these abid, of their children, their horses, their weapons, and all they possess. Share them among you."29

  Blacks were occasionally recruited into the mamluk forces in Egypt at the end of the eighteenth century. "When the supply [of white slaves] proves insufficient," says a contemporary observer, W. G. Browne, "or many have been expended, black slaves from the interior of Africa are substituted, and if found docile, are armed and accoutred like the rest." This is confirmed by Louis Frank, a medical officer with Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt, who wrote an important memoir on the Negro slave trade in Cairo.'

  In the nineteenth century, black military slaves reappeared in Egypt in considerable numbers; their recruitment was indeed one of the main purposes of the Egyptian advance up the Nile under Muhammad `Ali Pasha (reigned 1805-49) and his successors. Collected by annual razzias (raids) from Darfur and Kordofan, they constituted an important part of the Khedivial armies and incidentally furnished the bulk of the Egyptian expeditionary force which Said Pasha sent to Mexico in 1863, in support of the French.3' An English traveler writing in 1825 had this to say about black soldiers in the Egyptian army:

  When the negro troops were first brought down to Alexandria, nothing could exceed their insubordination and wild demeanour; but they learned the military evolutions in half the time of the Arabs; and I always observed they went through the manoeuvres with ten times the adroitness of the others. It is the fashion here, as well as in our colonies, to consider the negroes as the last link in the chain of humanity, between the monkey tribe and man in intellect; and I do not suffer the eloquence of the slave driver to convince me that the negro is so stultified as to be unfit for freedom.31

  Even in Turkey, liberated black slaves were sometimes recruited into the armed forces, often as a means to prevent their reenslavement. Some of these reached officer rank. A British naval report, dated January 25, 1858, speaks of black marines serving with the Turkish navy:

  They are from the class of freed slaves or slaves abandoned by merchants unable to sell them. There are always many such at Tripoli. I believe the government acquainted the Porte with the embarrassment caused by their numbers and irregularities, and this mode of relief was adopted. Those brought by the Faizi Bari, about 70 in number, were on their arrival enrolled as a Black company in the marine corps. They are in exactly the same position with respect to pay, quarters, rations, and clothing as the Turkish marines, and will equally receive their discharge at the expiration of the allotted term of service. They are in short on the books of the navy. They have received very kind treatment here, lodged in warm rooms with charcoal burning in them day and night. A negro Mulazim [lieutenant] and some negro tchiaoushes [sergeants], already in the service have been appointed to look after and instruct them. They have drilled in the manual exercise in their warm quarters, and have not been set to do any duty on account of the weather. They should not have been sent here in winter. Those among them unwell on their arrival were sent at once to the naval hospital. Two only have died of the whole number. The men in the barracks are healthy and appear contented. No amount of ingenuity can conjure up any connexion between their condition and the condition of slavery.32

  While the slave in arms was, with few exceptions, an Islamic innovation, the slave in authority dates hack to remote antiquity. Already in Sumerian times, kings appointed slaves to positions of prestige and even power-or, perhaps more accurately, treated certain of their court functionaries as royal slaves. Different words were used to denote such privileged slaves, distinct from those applied to the menial and laboring generality. Under the Abbasid caliphs and under later Muslim dynasties, men of slave origin, usually but not always manumitted, figured prominently in the royal entourage. The system of court slavery reached its final and fullest development in the Ottoman Empire, where virtually all the servants of the state, both civil and military, had the status of kul, 33 "slave," of the Gate, that is, of the sultan. The only exceptions were the members of the religious establishment. The Ottoman kul was not a slave in terms of Islamic law, and was free from most of the restraints imposed on slaves in such matters as marriage, property, and legal responsibility. He was, however, subject to the arbitrary power of the sultan, who was free to dispose of his assets, his person, and his life in ways not permitted by the law in relation to free- or freedmen. This perception of the status of political officeholders and their relationship to the supreme sovereign power was of course by no means limited to the Ottoman Empire, or indeed to the Islamic world.

  From the late eighteenth century onward there are numerous accounts, by contemporary, mostly European, observers, of the processes by which African slaves were caught, transported, and sold in the markets of the Middle East and North Africa.' A Tunisian traveler who visited Darfur at the beginning of the nineteenth century even offers an otherwise unconcerned story of farms where blacks were raised for sale:

  Certain rich people living in the town have installed these blacks [from the neighboring mountains] on their farms, to have them reproduce, and, as we sell sheep and cattle, so they, every year, sell those of their children that are ready for this. There are some of them who own five or six hundred male and female slaves, and merchants come to them at all times, to buy male and female slaves chosen to be sold.'

  This new account probably reflects an expansion of the trade, due to events farther north. The establishment of Russian domination in Eastern Europe and the Russian annexation of the Crimea in 1783 had finally ended the profitable trade of the Tatars, who for centuries had reaped an annual harvest of slaves from the villages of the Ukraine and adjoining lands and exported their crop to the slave markets of Istanbul and other Ottoman cities. The once-plentiful supply of white slaves from Central and Western Europe had long since dwindled to a mere trickle; and after the Russian annexation of the Caucasian lands circa 1801-28, the last remaining source of white slaves for the Islamic world was reduced and finally stopped.' Deprived of their Georgians and Circassians, the Muslim states turned elsewhere, and a large scale revival of slaving in black Africa took place. This was furthered by the Egyptian advance up the Nile at the time of Muhammad `Ali Pasha.

  The classical routes, developed in medieval times, lay from West Africa (Guinea, from the Berber word igginaw [pl. gnawa] meaning "black") across the Sahara to Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia; from the Sudan down the Nile or through the desert to Egypt; and from East Africa across the Red Sea and Indian Ocean to Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and beyond. Other, later routes led from Kano via Agades and Ghadames to Tripoli, and from Waday and Darfur via Borku and Tibesti to Kufra and Cyrenaica.

  With the growth of European influence in Egypt and the Maghrib and the involvement of the Ottoman government in the attempt to suppress the traffic in black slaves, those routes and markets which were remote from scrutiny acquired a new importance. One was in the country which is now called Libya. Tripoli and Benghazi became major centers of the slave trade, drawing their supplies from Chad and sometimes as far as Nigeria, and exporting them to the Ottoman provinces in Europe as well as Asia.' Often these slaves endured great hardship in the course of the journey from their homes to their destinations. A Turkish letter of November 1849, sent by the reforming Grand Vezir Mustafa Reshid Pasha to the Ottoman governor of Tripoli, refers to the death by thirst of sixteen hundred black slaves, on their way from Bornu to Fezzan in southern Libya: "While our Holy Law permits slavery, it requires that slaves be treated with fatherly care, and those who act in a contrary manner will be condemned by God." The governor was ordered to punish the guilty slavedealers and to ensure that such disasters did no
t recur. From British consular reports of the late nineteenth century, it is clear that this traffic, and the suffering it entailed, continued.' As late as 1912, a Turkish officer serving against the Italians in Tripolitania, noted in his diary:

  A special embassy from the Grand Senussi Sidi Ahmad Sharif is on its way, to bring the Grand Senussi's greetings and gifts: two negresses, ivory, etc. Heavens, what shall I do with the black ladies? He is also sending me his own gun, which he has blessed .6

  The officer was Enver Bey, later, as Enver Pasha, the Defense Minister of the last Young Turk government in Istanbul. The "Grand Senussi" was the chief of the Sanusiyya, the dominant Muslim religious order in Libya.

  Another important center of the trade was the Hijaz, which was exempt from the Ottoman decrees prohibiting or restricting the traffic in African slaves' and was not, therefore, subject to restraint or supervision. This gave a new role to the slave market of Mecca. Slaves were imported to the Hijaz by sea from East Africa and sent from there to the North and even to Egypt." In a dispatch dated March 17, 1877, the British vice-consul in Damascus, who had been instructed to use his best efforts to prevent this traffic, reported:

  Having brought to the notice of the new Governor General, Zia Pasha, the practice of importing African slaves from the markets of Mecca, with the [Pilgrim] Caravan, for sale in Syria, His Excellency informed me that he had already given very strict orders to prevent such abuses.

  His Excellency's orders have not, however, met with the success which he stated to me he expected, as slaves were brought as usual.9

  A third route, by which slaves were exported from the Sudan, both down the Nile to Egypt and across the Red Sea to Arabia, was one of the oldest of all. It was briefly suppressed, thanks to British and Egyptian initiatives in the late seventies and early eighties in the nineteenth century, partially restored with the success of the Mahdist revolt, and suppressed again after the AngloEgyptian reconquest in 1896-98.10

  The main purpose for which blacks were imported was domestic service. A certain number of free blacks also found employment, and in Arabia they could rise to important positions. In Egypt their role was usually humble. At the end of the eighteenth century, W. G. Browne noted that in Cairo "exclusively of negro slaves in every house, there are free blacks from Nubia, who act as porters at the gates of the rich, and sometimes sell bouza and eatables."" Black slaves for domestic use were very common during the nineteenth century in Egypt, in Turkey, and in the other Ottoman lands; and some survivors can still be met in these countries. The Nubian porter, servant, or hawker remains a familiar figure in Egypt to this day. African women were often kept as concubines, since only the wealthy could afford Circassian or other white slaves. Abyssinians--darker than whites, but lighter than blacksoccupied an intermediate position, as Edward Lane, who was in Egypt between 1833 and 1835, explains:

  The hareem may consist, first, of a wife, or wives (to the number of four); secondly, of female slaves, some of whom, namely, white and (as they are commonly called) Abyssinian (but more properly Galla) slaves, are generally concubines and others (the black slaves) kept merely for servile offices, as cooking, waiting upon the ladies, &c; thirdly, of female free servants, who are, in no case, concubines, or not legitimately so. The male dependents may consist of white and of black slaves, and free servants; but are mostly of the last-mentioned class. Very few of the Egyptians avail themselves of the licence, which their religion allows them, of having four wives; and still smaller is the number of those who have two or more wives, and concubines besides. Even most of those men who have but one wife are content, for the sake of domestic peace, if for no other reason, to remain without a concubine-slave: but some prefer the possession of an Abyssinian slave to the more expensive maintenance of a wife; and keep a black slave-girl, or an Egyptian female servant, to wait upon her, to clean and keep in order the apartments of the hareem, and to cook....

  The white female slaves are mostly in the possession of wealthy Turks. The concubine-slaves in the houses of Egyptians of the higher and middle classes are, generally, what are termed "Habasheeyehs," that is, Abyssinians, of a deep brown or bronze complexion. In their features, as well as their complexions, they appear to be an intermediate race between the negroes and white people: but the difference between them and either of the above-mentioned races is considerable. They themselves, however, think that they differ so little from the white people that they cannot be persuaded to act as servants, with due obedience, to their master's wives; and the black (or negro) slave-girl feels exactly in the same manner towards the Abyssinian, but is perfectly willing to serve the white ladies. . . . Most of them [the Abyssinians] are handsome. The average price of one of these girls is from ten to fifteen pounds sterling, if moderately handsome; but this is only about half the sum that used to be given for one a few years ago. They are much esteemed by the voluptuaries of Egypt; but are of delicate constitution: many of them die, in this country, from consumption. The price of a white slave-girl is usually from treble to tenfold that of an Abyssinian; and the price of a black girl, about half or two-thirds, or considerably more if well instructed in the art of cookery. The black slaves are generally employed as menials.12

  A similar distinction between true blacks and Abyssinians was noted by several travelers in Arabia. The same point is made by Arnold Kemball, British assistant resident in the Persian Gulf, in a report on the African slave trade dated July 8, 1842. In the former group,

  the Men are employed in all hard and out door work, the women in cooking, bringing water, etc. and but very rarely as concubines except by the poorer and lower classes.

  As to the Abyssinians,

  Slaves of both sexes are at all times much cared for well clothed and well fed. The Males are early sent to school and having learnt to read and write are employed in the performance of house duties . . . and very frequently if intelligent in the most trustworthy situations as supercargos of ships, stewards and superintendents.

  The Females are most generally retained as concubines or employed in the lightest duties as attendants in Harems... .

  Nubian and Hubshee [Abyssinian] Eunuchs are very high priced and only to be seen in the Service of the King, Nobles and very rich Merchants.' 3

  Eunuchs were in fact required in considerable numbers, in many countries, for households from the palace downward. They were also employed in the service of mosques. By a custom established in the late Middle Ages which continued into the twentieth century. the custodians of the tomb of the Prophet in Medina were eunuchs, mostly black, recruited by purchase at an early age and groomed for their sacred duties, which gave them an almost priestly status."

  In earlier times eunuchs had been recruited from both white and black slaves, and the Ottoman palace establishment, for example, had included separate corps of black and white eunuchs, each with its own chief. From the sixteenth century onward, the white eunuchs in the palace declined both in numbers and in influence. The black eunuchs increased correspondingly, and their chief, known as the Kizlar Agast, the "Aga of the Girls," was one of the most powerful figures at the Ottoman court. The corps of eunuchs was virtually the only route by which a black could attain to high office.15

  Most eunuchs, of course, remained in humble employment.16 By the nineteenth century they were recruited overwhelmingly from Africa. According to Louis Frank, writing in 1802, between one and two hundred African boys were castrated every year at Abu Tig in Upper Egypt, on the slave caravan route from the Sudan to Cairo. The victims were usually boys between eight and ten years old-never older. A eunuch, he notes, could be sold at double the price of an ordinary Negro, "and it is this increase in price which determines the owners, or rather usurpers, to have some of these wretches mutilated.""

  Rather more detail is given by the Swiss Arabist J. L. Burckhardt, who traveled extensively in Upper Egypt and the Sudan in 1813 and 1814. He found two places where slaves were mutilated in this way. The less important of the two was at a place west of
Darfur, from which a few eunuchs went to Egypt and the remainder were "sent as presents by the Negro sovereigns to the great mosques at Mekka and Medina, by the way of Souakin." The main center was at Zawiyat al-Dayr, a predominantly Coptic village near Asyut (Siout) in Upper Egypt. Here, says Burckhardt, was

  the great manufactory which supplies all European, and the greater part of Asiatic Turkey with these guardians of female virtue.... The operators, during my stay in that part of the country, were two Coptic monks, who were said to excel all their predecessors in dexterity, and who had a house in which the victims were received. Their profession is held in contempt even by the vilest Egyptians; but they are protected by the government, to which they pay an annual tax; and the great profits which accrue to the owners of the slaves in consequence of their undergoing this cruel operation, tempts them to consent to an act which many of them in their hearts abhor. The operation itself, however extraordinary it may appear, very seldom proves fatal. I know certainly, that of sixty boys upon whom it was performed in the autumn of 1813, only two died; and every person whom I questioned on the subject in Siout, assured me that even this was above the usual proportion, the deaths being seldom more than two in a hundred. As the greater number undergo the operation immediately after the arrival of the Darfour and Sennaar caravans from Siout, I had no opportunity of witnessing it but it has been described to me by several persons who have often seen it performed. The boys chosen are between the age of eight and twelve years, for at a more advanced age, there is a great risk of its proving fatal.

  A youth on whom this operation has been successfully performed is worth one thousand piastres at Siout; he had probably cost his master, a few weeks before, about three hundred; and the Copt is paid from forty-five to sixty for his operation. This enormous profit stifles every sentiment of mercy which the traders might otherwise entertain. About one hundred and fifty eunuchs are made annually. Two years ago, Mohammed Aly Pasha caused two hundred young Darfour slaves to be mutilated, whom he sent as a present to the Grand Signor. The custom of keeping eunuchs has greatly diminished in Egypt, as well as in Syria. In the former country, except in the harems of the Pasha and his sons, I do not think that more than three hundred could be found; and they are still more uncommon in Syria. In these countries there is great danger in the display of wealth; and the individual who keeps so many female slaves as to require an eunuch for their guardian, becomes a tempting object to the rapacity of the government. White eunuchs are extremely rare in the Turkish dominions.18