This book is a historical account of the slave trading system of the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the nineteenth century and of the attempts, which were eventually successful, to suppress it. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In the Ottoman Empire, many members of the ruling elite were legally slaves of the sultan and therefore could, technically, be ordered to surrender their labor, their property, or their lives at any moment. Nevertheless, slavery provided a means of social mobility, conferring status and political power within the military, the bureaucracy, or the domestic household and formed an essential part of patronage networks. Ehud R. Toledano’s exploration of slavery from the Ottoman viewpoint is based on extensive research in British, French, and Turkish archives and offers rich, original, and important insights into Ottoman life and thought. In an attempt to humanize the narrative and take it beyond the plane of numbers, tables and charts, Toledano examines the situations of individuals representing the principal realms of Ottoman slavery, female harem slaves, the sultan’s military and civilian kuls, court and elite eunuchs, domestic slaves, Circassian agricaultural slaves, slave dealers, and slave owners. Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East makes available new and significantly revised studies on nineteenth-century Middle Eastern slavery and suggests general approaches to the study of slavery in different cultures.

This study bridges the gap that exists between studies dedicated to the history of slavery in the Western and Islamic worlds. It sets itself the goal of understanding how slavery persisted and then met its end in the Ottoman Empire. It concentrates on the period between 1800-1909 and examines the policies of the Ottoman state regarding slavery both before and after the reform period known as the Tanzimat. It also looks at the British involvement in the issue.

This book presents a well-documented and important analysis of slavery and slave trade in the Caucasus within the fascinating contexts of Russian empire-building and emerging imperial identity of the Russian state as well as of the local political strategies of Caucasian political actors. The author offers a compelling, multi-layered analysis that is accessible to comparativists since it presents an important comparative case for slavery and its abolition, which helps us understand slavery in the broader contexts of both the ancient and western colonial worlds. The historical detail and use of frequent primary source quotations provide a lively sense of reality to this well-worked regional history with substantial comparative significance.