No matter how superior the Europeans may be, if europeans were allowed to choose to travel back to an era, those who had a little historical research would not choose to travel back to the 17th century, let alone to Turkey, the mighty Ottoman Empire at that time, because there was a dark history that they did not want to face.
In that era, in the bakery of the Ottoman king, in the construction site of the new palace and the new city, there were tens of thousands of unclothed slaves, who did their best to do heavy physical work such as grinding, quarrying, and masonry in the insults and whippings of the king's overseers, and unlike what we imagined, these slaves had natural white skin, while the scolding overseers had dark skin.
Although the stones on their shoulders had almost crushed them, no one dared to stop for a rest, because as soon as the movement was slightly slower, the overseer's whip was already on them, and the slaves were beaten to death almost every day, but there was never a shortage of slaves at the scene of the work.
Because in the prosperous slave market at that time, substitute labor could be found at any time, and the price was not expensive, 30 pounds could buy a strong young man, the little boy was worth about 40 pounds, and more could even have a "wholesale price", which was the "white slave trade" in history.
This history of enslavement, which took place over 300 years in the 16th and 19th centuries, is a completely unfamiliar story for many people, and some even wonder if this is a real existence.
British best-selling author, Giles. Milton, through a british teenager who has personally experienced being trafficked and enslaved, Thomas. Pelo's letters to his family, combined with other relevant documents, turned this history into a bestseller that was stylistically closer to a novel than an academic research work— White Gold.
01. Where did white slaves come from?
This begins with the powerful Spain of the 15th century. As the ambitions of the Spanish rulers grew, their territory began to expand by plundering other small surrounding countries through war.
The Muslim Moors who lived in the Iberian Peninsula (present-day Spain and Portugal) and Sicily at that time had to leave their homes and flee to North Africa, which is mostly desert, you can imagine how difficult their lives were.
This situation continued until two pirates wandering off the coast of Barbary appeared, and the life of the Moors began to change.
Two pirates led the Moors who wanted to change their living conditions, began to try to rob the merchant ships of Spain, Portugal, Italy and three countries on the barbary coast, they robbed the merchant ships on the one hand, and also had to deal with the pursuit of the Spanish navy, the Moors who had a festival with the Spaniards themselves, in the face of powerful Spanish naval artillery fire, the more courageous the Vietnamese war, with the continuous accumulation of combat experience, even the Spanish navy was defeated, since then, this group of pirates has also begun to be called "Barbary pirates" by Europeans, It made European merchants in the past feel frightened.
At this time, an unusual country, the Ottoman Empire and today's Turkey, began to look at the pirates differently, wondering how to cooperate with them. At this time, the Ottoman Empire had just experienced the plague, the population was very small, especially the lack of young and middle-aged labor, how to quickly solve the problem of the shortage of labor in the country, has become one of the most headaches for the current rulers.
And the Barbary pirates' range of activities is just near the territorial waters of the Ottoman Empire, is it cooperation? Is it to avoid it? Is it to join forces with other countries to drive away the pirates?
The Ottoman rulers, who were worried that no one was working, chose to cooperate - secretly supporting the Barbary pirates, so that when they hijacked the European merchant ships, they took the people on the merchant ships to their own countries to serve as prime-age laborers, the slaves of the rulers and even the army soldiers, and the ships were mostly white Europeans, so the white slave trade was born unconsciously.
If they wanted to redeem the captive merchants, their families had to pay high compensation, with each slave paying an average of 38 pounds, or even more than 1,300 pounds, while the average annual income of The London shopkeeper at that time was only 10-40 pounds.
Over time, and the Barbary pirates also tasted the sweetness in this population trade, the eyes began to focus on other European countries, in the process of plundering, they also plundered a variety of new weapons, it can be said that the sea combat power directly exploded, even the British, which was known as the "Empire of the Rising Sun on the Sea", was also beaten by them without any ability to fight back.
As the Ottoman Empire began to grow stronger after cooperating with pirates, other small countries near the Barbary Sea began to cooperate with pirates, which not only maintained a certain tranquility near the coast of their country, but also increased the labor force, and if they met Europeans who wanted to redeem slaves, they could make a huge profit.
02. What happened to white slaves?
Giles. In "White Gold", Milton personally experienced the trafficked, enslaved British teenager Thomas. Pello writes:
When slaves first arrived, they would be solemnly paraded through the city, walking through several streets like herded sheep.
Under such public humiliation, many slaves began to despair and collapse in their hearts, but this was only the beginning, and what awaited them was the terrible underground prison.
In this prison, for 6 months of the year, the groundwater and sewage would seep out of the mud and spread over the knees, and in order not to soak in the sewage, the slaves made a kind of hammock, hanging it from top to bottom with large nails, and the back of the person sleeping at the bottom could almost touch the water, and if the hammock was broken in the middle of the night, everyone would fall into the water and spend the long night.
There was only a small amount of coarse bread and water once a day in prison, and if there was a slave auction, the able-bodied men would receive generous food—fresh food and good white bread twice a day for several days, so that the slaves looked good on the day of the auction and sold for a good price.
When you come to the home of a new slave owner, if you are a young female slave, in addition to doing heavy work, another task is to give birth to small slaves for your master. Older female slaves would go to the dark bakery to grind their noodles day after day.
If it was a male slave, those with special skills would be marked for a high price, and those with no skills would go to the quarry.
Whether men or women, they will face a problem is to change their religious beliefs, blindly resist, will be greeted by death at some point.
This situation lasted for nearly 300 years, when the rulers of Europe united and decided to use force against the Barbary pirates, to stop capturing and selling European slaves, and every commander who participated in the battle knew very well that they were making a gamble that they did not know whether to win or lose, and if they lost, the Barbary pirates would be more famous, the slaves who were trafficked would be imprisoned forever or immediately executed, and the danger of European merchant ships would only increase.
Under the force of more than 50,000 shells, the imprisoned white slaves returned to their hometowns, and the fishermen and merchant ships on the Barbary Coast no longer had to risk being imprisoned to go to sea, and the white slave trade came to an end.
As Giles. As Milton puts it in this book of White Gold:
"The story of the white slave trade is like the story of a man caught up in nightmares and powerless to get out. Most died in purgatory captivity, but a few lucky ones escaped the clutches of their 'masters'. Those who return to their hometowns are in abject poverty. One way they make a living is to publish their own stories, hoping to earn a few shillings. ”
Thus, these less pleasant readings become the most powerful clues today in the search for this dark history that Europeans do not want to be known.