170 /. B. Kakeslaves were taken to the Muslim world in the seventh century, 200,000 in the
eighth, 400,000 in the ninth, 500,000 in each of the tenth to the thirteenth
centuries, 1 million in the fourteenth, 2 million in each century from the fifteenth
to the nineteenth inclusive, and 300,000 in the twentieth century, making a
total of 14 million altogether. These are provisional figures pending more
detailed studies, which in fact will only be possible for the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries.
The Arabs kept no official record of the numbers, nor did they write
about their own slave trade as some European authors wrote about the Atlantic
slave trade. In any general history of the black slave trade, the role of the
Muslims cannot be ignored. Their trade, however, appears to have been on a
smaller scale than that of the Europeans, although it lasted longer; indeed
some of its consequences are still apparent in the Middle East to this day.
Although the conditions in which the slaves were captured and carried
off to the Muslim countries were particularly atrocious, the treatment which
the survivors of the desert crossing received on arrival was on the whole
reasonably tolerable.Treatment of black slaves in the Muslim worldThe living conditions of black slaves in the Muslim world varied according to
their sex and the country in which they were to live.
By and large, women were better treated than men. Those who were
not admitted to the dignity of favourites became servants in the harems and
resignedly submitted to the whims of the wives.
The brothers Jérôme and Jean Tharaud have left us some picturesque
descriptions of the different functions of black women in Morocco.
In Morocco, there is the bedchamber negress, who is more inclined to admire her
master; what the Fassi (inhabitant of Fez) likes about his négresses is that their skin
is supposed to be warmer than that of white women. And for a Moroccan, every
ailment comes from the cold, whereas all healing is the result of heat.
Next to the bedchamber négresses is a category of slave known as the dada,
or wet-nurse, a person of great importance, a despot even. Finally, there is the dowry
slave-girl ; when a girl marries, her husband has to give her a slave, who is her mistress's
go-between for messages or gifts.^10
Negresses were sought after by the Moroccans not only as concubines, but
also as wives, on a par with white women. This explains the large number of
mulattos of every shade in Morocco today. Edmondo de Amicis remarks :
Curious twists of fate! A poor ten-year-old black boy, sold at the confines of the
Sahara for a bag of sugar or a piece of cloth, can, if fate is kind to him, find himself