The Forgotten Slave Trade: The White European Slaves of Islam

by (Historian) Simon Webb

Apart from guilt about the British Empire and its role in the transatlantic slave trade, there is today another very powerful reason for wishing to expunge Britain’s own experience of slavery from history and to pretend that it never happened. There are currently attempts to create a definition of ‘Islamophobia’ (The Guardian, 2019), it being undeniably true that there exists prejudice against Muslims in Britain. Almost all the slaves seized in Britain and the rest of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were captured by Muslims and were specifically targeted because they came from white, Christian countries. It is perhaps felt that such an unpalatable fact would be better overlooked or forgotten. Unfortunately, a side-effect of this sensitivity has from time to time unnecessarily tarnished the reputation of Britain and its empire, creating an altogether false view of the past.