The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade is the full length history of the northbound trade in black slaves across the Sahara to North Africa (Maghreb). It reveals an ancient, persistent but obscure traffic, a basic but largely overlooked feature of the historical economy and society of the Sahara and North Africa. John Wright unveils the true scale and scope of the trade, giving wholly new and detailed statistical accounts of the slave traffic along different desert roads and through Saharan, Maghrebi and Mediterranean markets.
Using detailed historical statistics and eyewitness accounts, John Wright's study supports and widens current scholarly examinations of Africans' enslavement of fellow-Africans and their delivery to local and external markets. Shedding light on the important but under-studied Trans-Saharan slave trade, this text is basic reading for students and researchers in North African, Saharan and Mediterranean history.