The
Barbary slave trade refers to the White slave markets that flourished on the
Barbary Coast of North Africa, or modern-day
Morocco,
Algeria,
Tunisia, and western
Libya, between the 15th and 19th centuries. These markets prospered while the states were nominally under
Ottoman suzerainty, but in reality they were mostly autonomous. The
North African slave markets traded in
European slaves. The European slaves were acquired by
Barbary pirates in
slave raids on ships and by raids on coastal towns from Italy to Spain, Portugal, France, England, the Netherlands, and as far afield as
Ireland and
Iceland. Men, women, and children were captured, to such a devastating extent that vast numbers of sea
coast towns were abandoned .