World History › Section O · Asian and African trade worlds › Topic O.7
The trans-Saharan slave trade
For more than a thousand years, caravans carried enslaved Africans north across the Sahara to North Africa, Egypt and the Middle East. This topic looks at how many people were taken, who they were and why, how the trade fed on war in the Sahel, and how the arrival of Europeans on Africa's coasts changed but did not end it.
In this topic
- One trade among several
- How many people?
- Who was enslaved, and for what
- The desert crossing
- Kanem-Bornu and the central route
- Worked example: the horse and captive cycle
- Worked example: Ahmad Baba's ruling
- Europeans on the coast
- Slavery, race and abolition
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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