Race and Slavery in the Middle East

Race and Slavery in the Middle East: Histories of Trans-Saharan Africans in Nineteenth-Century Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Empire. Edited by Terence Walz and Kenneth M. Cuno. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2010.

New sources and research illuminate the individual lives of African slaves in the Middle East In the nineteenth century hundreds of thousands of Africans were forcibly migrated northward to Egypt and other eastern Mediterranean destinations, yet relatively little is known about them. Studies have focused mainly on the mamluk and harem slaves of elite households, who were mostly white, and on abolitionist efforts to end the slave trade, and most have relied heavily on western language sources. In the past forty years new sources have become available, ranging from Egyptian religious and civil court and police records to rediscovered archives and accounts in western archives and libraries. Along with new developments in the study of African slavery these sources provide a perspective on the lives of non-elite trans-Saharan Africans in nineteenth century Egypt and beyond. The nine essays in this volume examine the lives of slaves and freed men and women in Egypt and the region.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Emad Ahmed Helal: Muhammad Ali's First Army: the Experiment in Building an Entirely Slave Army
Chapter 2: Terence Walz: Sudanese, Habasha, Takarna, and Barabira: Trans-Saharan Africans in Cairo as Shown in the 1848 Census
Chapter 3: Kenneth M. Cuno: African Slaves in Nineteenth-Century Rural Egypt: A Preliminary Assessment
Chapter 4: George Michael La Rue: "My Ninth Master was a European:" Enslaved Blacks in European Households in Egypt, 1798-1848
Chapter 5: Y. Hakan Erdem: Magic, Theft and Arson: The Life and Death of an Enslaved African Woman in Ottoman Izmit
Chapter 6: Ahmad Alawad Sikainga: Slavery and Social Life in Nineteenth-Century Turco-Egyptian Khartoum
Chapter 7: Michael Ferguson: Enslaved and Emancipated Africans on Crete
Chapter 8: Liat Kozma: Black, Kinless and Hungry: Manumitted Female Slaves in Khedival Egypt
Chapter 9: Eve M. Troutt Powell: Slaves or Siblings? Abdallah al-Nadim's Dialogues about the Family