| They may have been ignorant of the extent of slavery, but I'd be surprised if they weren't aware on some level of what was going on. There were fairly notorious slave trading outposts up and down the African coast. Eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Coast_Castle David Livingstone came across Arab slave traders in the 1870s deep in the interior: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone#Livingstone_... We often talk about slavery in the West, but many don't realize how endemic slavery was to the Arab world and how late it lasted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade Slavery in the Ottoman Empire was abolished in 1924 when the new Turkish Constitution disbanded the Imperial Harem and made the last concubines and eunuchs free citizens of the newly proclaimed republic.[17] Slavery in Iran was abolished in 1929. Among the last states to abolish slavery were Saudi Arabia and Yemen, which abolished slavery in 1962 under pressure from Britain; Oman in 1970, and Mauritania in 1905, 1981, and again in August 2007.[18] Finally, the reach of slavery is pretty incredible. During the Great Game period between Russia and Britain in Central Asia, both sides would come across Russian slaves who had been taken by Turkic raiders. This was at least 1840 or so. But again, to circle back around to the point, nobody was really unaware of this stuff going on. Slavery unfortunately has been a pretty common feature of history. We all played divide and conquer. The West weren't the only people smart enough to figure out that strategy. It takes some agency from those peoples when we see them as unknowing, ignorant victims who were tricked by outsiders. They in reality made brutal and tactical decisions about their local enemies. They weren't dumb, they knew what they were doing. |