Buzz
Slavery is rightfully regarded as one of the most heinous atrocities ever inflicted by humans upon their own kind. Countless millions are allocated each year to educate the public about the African slave trade, which spanned from the late 16th century to the end of the 19th century. However, the Arab slave trade in East Africa, though less discussed, is also gaining attention, thanks to the accessibility of information on the Internet.
But Africans were not the only people subjected to slavery. Nearly every nation has faced bondage at some point in history. Christian slaves from distant lands such as Russia and Austria were often found in the slave markets of the Ottoman Turks. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, Barbary pirates from North Africa captured up to one million Christians from Southern Europe. During the First Crusade, the Turks themselves were frequently employed as slave-soldiers known as Mamluks.
One of the longest yet least known (at least in the West) slave trades in history took place within the Crimean Khanate, a Muslim state that operated as a vassal of the Ottoman Turks. Lasting from 1449 to 1783, the Crimean Khanate was both a massive slave market and a major center for the trafficking of slaves, most of whom were Slavic Christians.
The Crimean Tatars and the Turkic Nogai people were responsible for one of the largest slave trades in history, but their story is largely unknown outside of Ukraine and Russia.
10. A Gateway to Vast Riches
Positioned along the Black Sea, Crimea has long been a crossroads between the Christian West and the Muslim East, fostering a rich history of commerce. Notably, it was a hub for slave traders who engaged in the buying and selling of human lives across the surrounding Christian territories. This trade saw a significant rise once Crimea gained independence from the Mongol Golden Horde. By 1449, Crimea became a vassal to the newly established Ottoman Empire in Anatolia.
In 1468, a significant Crimean Tatar raid surged into Europe, reaching as far north as modern-day Galicia, a region shared by Ukraine and Poland. It is suggested by at least one author that the frequent Crimean raids into this area gave rise to the famous saying: 'O how much better to lie on one’s bier, than to be a captive on the way to Tatary.'
The precise financial impact of the slave raids into Eastern Europe remains unclear. However, considering the prolonged nature of the Crimean slave trade, it's reasonable to estimate that the wealth generated, potentially in the billions, came from the exploitation of both Slavic and non-Slavic Christian populations.
9. The Figures
There is little consensus among historians regarding the exact number of slaves who were either killed or captured during the Crimean Tatar raids. Nonetheless, various figures have been presented to offer some insight into the scale of these events.
In his book Russia’s Steppe Frontier, author Michael Khodarkovsky asserts that between 150,000 and 200,000 ethnic Russians were enslaved during the early 17th century. Accounts from that period, including those from an Armenian resident of Crimea, vividly describe how Tatar raids and Cossack reprisals led to the destruction of entire villages, with most of the male population either killed or sold into slavery.
Crimean Muslim writer Haci Mehmed Senai noted that the deep-seated hostility between Christians and Muslims fostered an environment of extreme violence. As a result, during the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648, Senai mentioned that Tatar soldiers took pleasure in slaughtering 10–15 captives each.
Historian Alan W. Fisher has claimed that between 1468 and 1694, around two million Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles were captured and enslaved by Muslims. Additionally, between 1450 and 1700, the Ottoman city of Istanbul imported up to 2.5 million slaves from Christian Europe and parts of the Muslim and Christian Caucasus.
8. The Rise of the Cossacks
Few soldiers are as dreaded as the Russian Cossack. Today recognized as professional soldiers and members of various paramilitary groups, the Cossacks originally emerged as nomadic warriors who highly valued their autonomy.
The term 'Cossack' originally referred to the Turkic and Muslim Tatars of the Dnieper River in the 15th century. By the latter part of that century, serfs escaping harsh conditions in Muscovy, Poland, and Lithuania sought refuge in the Cossack territories of what is now Ukraine. There, Slavic and Turkic men established nomadic warrior groups, creating and enforcing their own rules.
As Moscow grew in power, it saw the Cossacks, who were difficult to control, as an opportunity to create a military buffer against the formidable Ottoman Empire and its allies. The Polish crown also recognized the potential of the Cossacks as military partners. Both Moscow and Poland allowed the Cossacks autonomy, provided they served in regular military campaigns. Moscow also used them as settlers in regions recently conquered from the Ottomans and inhabited by Muslims.
During the period of the Crimean slave trade, Cossacks were often enlisted to rescue kidnapped Christian men or at least to retaliate against the Tatars for their actions.
7. Island of Slavery
According to Vladimir Shlapentokh, by the year 1666, the predominant population on the island of Crimea was no longer Muslim Tatars but Christian Ukrainians. Drawing from the Turkish chronicler Evlia Chelebi, Shlapentokh mentions that most of the 920,000 Ukrainians were enslaved individuals.
The primary slave market in Crimea was situated in the city of Caffa, where Christian slaves were transported by land and sea to the Ottoman Empire. Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha praised this trade, which generated 30,000 gold ducats in the span of just one year, 1526–27. While some of these slaves became Janissaries, elite soldiers in the Ottoman army, the majority spent their lives in forced labor or as naval slaves.
Even into the early 19th century, Russian travelers and military officers reported witnessing thousands of Russian slaves being bought and sold in Central Asia, particularly in the Emirate of Bukhara. Some of these elderly men were likely captured first near Crimea before being transported eastward.
6. The Great Raid of 1498
Since the 14th century, the Mongol Golden Horde had dominion over Ukraine and the expansive Eurasian Steppe. Moscow was a vassal to the Golden Horde, making the Kingdom of Poland the only European power capable of resisting the Tatars. This political situation led to centuries of warfare between Polish-Lithuanian forces and Tatar horsemen, as they fought for control in Eastern Europe.
By 1466, Poland had expanded its territory, seizing West and East Prussia, Danzig, Pomerania, and Chelmo. At this time, Poland was under the rule of King Casimir IV Jagiellon, who had Lithuanian roots. Casimir also briefly formed an alliance with the Golden Horde to attack the Russian principality of Novgorod, but this alliance was short-lived, as the Golden Horde had weakened significantly by then.
Three decades later, the Crimean Khanate, a new Muslim power in Western Eurasia, formed an alliance with Moldavia, a Christian vassal of the Ottoman Empire. With an army of about 100,000, this Tatar-Moldavian force invaded Poland-Lithuania, seeking loot and slaves.
The fearsome Tatar horsemen encountered little resistance at first, quickly capturing the Polish cities of Jaroslaw, Perevorsk, and the fortified town of Przemysl. They also attacked the important city of Lvov (modern-day Lviv, Ukraine), though Polish defenders were able to repel them. Before returning to Crimea, the Tatars devastated surrounding villages, killing thousands and enslaving many. One account suggests that 100,000 Polish slaves were captured during the 1498 raid.
5. The Attack on Kiev in 1500
Two years following the Tatar-Moldavian raid on Poland, the Crimean Tatars launched another attack, this time targeting the Ukrainian and Belorussian regions that were once part of the mighty Kievan Rus’ civilization. Like the previous raid, the Tatars were supported by their allies.
Prince Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow, urged his Crimean allies to raid the Belorussian cities of Slutsk, Pinsk, Turov, and Minsk. This request aimed to destabilize the Polish forces and prevent any potential Polish invasion of Muscovite lands.
Meanwhile, the Tatars assaulted Kiev, Chelm, Beltz, and other cities along the Vistula River. The Polish militia, the main defense force of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was mobilized but failed to intercept the Tatars before they returned to Crimea with their plunder and thousands of captives.
The Tatars struck the Commonwealth again the following year. According to one historian, the raids of 1500–1501 resulted in the capture of 50,000 Slavic Christian slaves by the Crimean Muslims.
4. Mehmed Giray’s Assault on Moscow
One of the most significant Tatar invasions of Slavic lands took place in the summer of 1521. Khan Mehmed Giray, along with his allies from Kazan, ravaged Moscow and captured an unknown number of slaves. He only withdrew from the city after receiving a payment from Prince Vasily III to end the attack.
For this major raid, Khan Giray commanded an army of around 100,000 soldiers, including Crimean Tatars, Kazan Turks, Nogais, and even some Lithuanians. The army took its time making its way toward Moscow, and once there, they spent several weeks looting the area and seizing men and women for future sale.
By the time Prince Vasily III mustered a force of several thousand to defend Moscow, the raid was already complete. The Tatars and their allies had already achieved their objective—the capture of Christian slaves.
According to the Russian Ostrog Chronicle, Giray’s forces captured 300,000 slaves, while Sigismund von Herberstein, a diplomat from the Holy Roman Empire who witnessed the raid, reported that 800,000 slaves were taken from Moscow. If this is accurate, it suggests that the majority of the city's population was enslaved by the Tatars.
3. Russia Ends the Crimean Khanate
The Crimean Tatars continued their raids on Christian territories well into the 18th century, capturing thousands of Slavic men and women. Notable raids included the capture of 50,000 Poles in 1612, 60,000 Russians in 1646, 100,000 Poles in 1648, and 400,000 citizens of Valynia in 1676. Despite these successful invasions, the power of the Crimean Khanate began to wane in the early 17th century, primarily due to the rising influence of Moscow, which later became Russia.
In 1552, Muscovite Prince Ivan IV, also known as Ivan the Terrible, captured the strategic city of Kazan, a key ally of the Crimean Khanate. A Muscovite army of 150,000 men besieged Kazan for weeks until the Turkic Muslim defenders finally surrendered.
After his triumph, Ivan declared Kazan a Christian city, forcibly converting the Tatars in large numbers, and constructed numerous Russian Orthodox churches across his newly acquired territories. In Moscow, Ivan celebrated his victory by erecting a magnificent Orthodox cathedral—the renowned Saint Basil’s Cathedral.
Despite Russia’s growing power, Crimea and the Crimean Khanate remained independent until their annexation by Moscow in 1783. The catalyst for this annexation was the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774.
During this conflict, Catherine II (also known as Catherine the Great) rejected a Turkish demand to cease her interference in Polish matters, instead directing her armies to strike at the Ottoman vassal states of Azov, Bessarabia, and Crimea. Field Marshal P.A. Rumyantsev’s decisive victories against Ottoman forces in Moldavia and Bulgaria effectively shattered Turkish resistance.
Following the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca in 1774, the Ottoman Empire agreed to grant Crimea independence and recognized Russia’s new borders extending to the Southern Buh River. However, full annexation of Crimea did not occur until years later, after Tatar uprisings against Russian rule.
2. Slaves for the Harem
Male slaves captured in Slavic Europe by the Muslim Tatars were often faced with one of two destinies: to either become soldiers in the Muslim army or spend their lives toiling as labor slaves. Women captured, however, had different fates: they could either endure hard labor as slaves or become concubines to the Ottoman sultans. The latter fate was reserved for only the most beautiful.
At Caffa, 70 percent of all slaves were transported south to Istanbul. Upon reaching the Ottoman capital, the human cargo of Crimean slave ships was thoroughly examined by Ottoman officials, who sought the most beautiful women. Other attractive women were traded as 'custom,' or used as bargaining chips in the negotiations between Muslim rulers across Eurasia.
These female slaves, known in Turkish as cariye, often rose to significant positions within the Ottoman court. Several European women, like the Russian Hurrem and the Italian Safiye, became the most favored concubines of the Ottoman sultans.
Certain groups, such as the Christian Georgians and Muslim Circassians, became well-known for producing slave women for the Ottomans. Many of these women were encouraged to bear as many children as possible, which resulted in more slaves and greater wealth for the Turks.
Hurrem, a former Russian captive from a war, rose to become the wife of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. At the palace, she exercised significant influence and played a central role in the period known as the 'Sultanate of Women,' a time spanning a century when women in the Ottoman harem held real political power in Istanbul. Many of these influential women were European Christians, and some were mothers to future sultans.
1. Lithuania Rebuffs the Tatars
During the 16th century, Tatar raids on Christian territories were frequent. Nearly every year, the Crimean Tatars would amass large forces and penetrate deep into Christian lands. These raids were typically successful, allowing the Crimean Muslims to capture thousands of Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Lithuanian slaves.
Despite their battlefield triumphs against enemies, the Crimean Tatars were not united during the 1520s. Power struggles within their leadership and conflicts with their allies left Crimea vulnerable at various points in time.
The situation changed in 1527 when the Crimean Khanate was once again consolidated. The Tatars quickly took action, launching a raid into Lithuania. The primary aim of this expedition was to rescue Sheikh Ahmed, the exiled khan of the Golden Horde. Although Sheikh Ahmed was eventually freed from Lithuanian captivity, this was not the result of a Crimean victory.
In early 1527, either January or February, a Lithuanian army of approximately 7,000 soldiers struck a decisive blow, defeating the Tatars at the Battle of Olshanitsa. Following their defeat, the Tatars were harassed by Polish and Ukrainian Cossacks during their retreat south. In the aftermath, the Crimean Khanate sought and secured peace with the Commonwealth.
