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The Barbary slave trade involved the capture and selling of European slaves at slave markets in the largely independent Ottoman Barbary states. European slaves were captured by Barbary pirates in slave raids on ships and by raids on coastal towns from Italy to Ireland, coasts of Spain and Portugal, as far north as Iceland and into the Eastern Mediterranean.
The Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean was the scene of intense piracy.[1] As late as the 18th century, piracy continued to be a "consistent threat to maritime traffic in the Aegean".[2]
The Barbary slave trade came to an end in the early years of the 19th century, after the United States and Western European allies won the First and Second Barbary Wars against the pirates and the region was conquered by France, putting an end to the trade by the 1830s.[3][4][5]
Most of the captives were seamen and crews who were taken with their ships, but there were many fishermen and coastal villagers who were captured. The majority of these captives were people from countries around the Mediterranean, especially from Italy.[6][7]
consistent threat to maritime traffic in the Aegean
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