Geographic and

Economic Causes of Large

Scale Slavery

Isolated Peoples

The Slavs

TraditionsTraditions

West

RomeOccidentNon-CentralizedInteraction

East

ByzantiumOrientCentralizedIsolation

The most continuously productive sources of slaves in human history

The Dalmatian Coast

Western Europe and the Middle East took Slaves

from the Dalmatian Coast for Six Centuries

Dubrovnik is the Western Bastion

Centuries Before the African Slave Trade,

Turkish Raiders Took Hundreds of

Thousands of Russian as Slaves

Slavs were so widely sold into bondage, the word SLAV

becomes the word for SLAVE in many Western European languages.

It also become the word for SLAVE in ARABIC

It was cheaper to send grain from Russia to the Dalmatian

Coast along the Dnieper River and Black Sea, through the Dardanelles and into the Adriatic then it was to take

grain from Serajevo to Dubruznik

Dnieper River to Dalmatia

• SarajevoSarajevoToTo

• DubrovnikDubrovnik

Big Escarpment a few miles in from the Adriatic Sea. Grooves

within the mountains leave the Slavs

isolated

Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire

AFRICA

Smooth Coastline of Sub Sahara Africa

Very few harbors for Ocean Going Vessels

Lack of Navigable Rivers

Dearth of Navigable Rivers or Streams

Escarpments and Rift Valleys

Rivers of Africa

Rivers of Europe

North American Rivers

Shorter Coastline than EuropeShortest Coastline of all

ContinentsLack of Indentations for

Natural Harbors

Relief Map of Europe

Shallow Coastal Waterways

Trade is much more expensive

Ships must anchor off shore

Thin Coastal Plain (20 miles)

Then an Escarpment

No Ports

No Great Cities

Nigeria Slave Slave CoastCoast

Ghana Gold Gold CoastCoast

Corte Ivories Ivory Ivory CoastCoast

Tsetse Fly

Malaria

Slavery

Islamic Jihad