Race and Slavery in the Middle East

In the nineteenth century hundreds of thousands of Africans were forcibly migrated northward to Egypt and other eastern Mediterranean destinations, yet relatively little is known about them. Studies have focused mainly on the mamluk and harem slaves of elite households, who were mostly white, and on abolitionist efforts to end the slave trade, and most have relied heavily on western language sources. In the past forty years new sources have become available, ranging from Egyptian religious and civil court and police records to rediscovered archives and accounts in western archives and libraries. Along with new developments in the study of African slavery these sources provide a perspective on the lives of non-elite trans-Saharan Africans in nineteenth century Egypt and beyond. The nine essays in this volume examine the lives of slaves and freed men and women in Egypt and the region. Contributors: Kenneth M. Cuno, Y. Hakan Erdem, Michael Ferguson, Emad Ahmad Helal Shams al-Din, Liat Kozma, George Michael La Rue, Ahmad A. Sikainga, Eve M. Troutt Powell, and Terence Walz.

Autorentext
TERENCE WALZ is an independent scholar working in Washington, DC. He is the author of Trade Between Egypt and Bilad as-Sudan, 1700-1820. KENNETH M. CUNO is associate professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. He co-edited Family, Gender and Law in a Globalizing Middle East and South Asia and is the author of The Pasha's Peasants: Land, Society and Economy in Lower Egypt, 1740-1858.