The Danish slave trade occurred separately in two different periods: the trade in European slaves during the Viking Age, from the 8th to the 10th century; and the Danish role in selling African slaves during the Atlantic slave trade, which commenced in 1733 and ended in 1807 when the abolition of slavery was announced. The location of the latter slave trade primarily occurred in the Danish West Indies (Saint Thomas, Saint Croix, and Saint John) where slaves were tasked with many different manual labour activities, primarily working on sugar plantations. The slave trade had many impacts that varied in their nature (economic and humanitarian), with some more severe than others. After many years of slavery in the Danish West Indies, Christian VII decided to abolish slave trading. While no law explicitly permitted slavery within the European part of Denmark–Norway, multiple bureaucratic and legal cases during the 18th century permitted slaveholding of some slaves on European soil.
The Viking Age was a period of widespread upheaval and disruption throughout the northern world. Viking raiders sought captives, many of whom were captured and held in camps where they were ransomed, exploited and enslaved. The Persian traveler Ibn Rustah described how Vikings, the Varangians or Rus, terrorized and enslaved the Slavs taken in their raids along the Volga River.
Danish slave trade during the Viking Age
Slavery was a deeply entrenched institution in Viking society which was hierarchical, and the lowest social class consisted of thralls and slaves, which made up the main source of hard labor in Norse society. This practice was largely abandoned once Denmark became Christian in the 10th century, but continued into the 14th century.
Background
Slavery was common in the Viking age period, and one of the main reasons for the Viking expansion was the search for slaves in other countries. One of the reasons Kievan Rus came to be was that Scandinavian settlers established themselves and traded with captured slaves. During the eighth to tenth centuries, slaves from Eastern Europe and the Baltic Sea were traded to elite households in Byzantium and the Islamic world via the Dnieper and Volga river systems, the Carolingian Empire and Venice. Arabic merchants from the Caspian Sea and Byzantine merchants from the Black Sea brought their goods to the trade markets in Rus, where they met the Viking traders and warriors known as Varangians, and traded their goods for the slaves captured by the Vikings in Europe.
The Vikings used the demand for slaves in the Southern slave markets in the Orthodox Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Middle Eastern Caliphate, both of whom craved slaves of a different religion than their own. During the Middle Ages, organized alongside religious principles, both Christians and Muslims banned the enslavement of people of their own faith, but both approved of the enslavement of people of a different faith;Slavery in the Black Sea Region, C.900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. (2021). Nederländerna: Brill. 5 both did allow the enslavement of people they regarded to be heretics, which allowed Catholic Christians to enslave Orthodox Christians, and Sunni Muslims to enslave Shia Muslims.Korpela, J. (2018). Slaves from the North: Finns and Karelians in the East European Slave Trade, 900–1600. Nederländerna: Brill. 242 However, both Christians and Muslims approved of enslaving Pagans, who came to be a preferred target of the slave trade in the Middle Ages, and Pagan war captives were sold by Pagan enemies into the slave trade.
Viking slave trade
The Vikings trafficked European slaves captured in Viking raids in Europe in two destinations from present day Russia via the Volga trade route; one to Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate in the Middle East via the Caspian Sea, the Samanid slave trade and Iran; and one to the Byzantine Empire and the Mediterranean via Dnieper and the Black Sea slave trade.Pargas & Schiel, Damian A.; Juliane (2023). The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery Throughout History. Tyskland: Springer International Publishing. p. 126The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery Throughout History. (2023). Tyskland: Springer International Publishing. p. 126 Until the 9th century, the Vikings trafficked European slaves from the Baltic Sea in the North or the North Sea in the West via the Wisla or the Donau rivers southeast through Europe to the Black Sea.Korpela, Jukka Jari (2018). Slaves from the North – Finns and Karelians in the East European Slave Trade, 900–1600. Studies in Global Slavery, Band: 5. Nederländerna: Brill. p. 35 The Viking slave route was redirected in the 9th century, and until the 11th century the Vikings trafficked European slaves from the Baltic Sea via Ladoga, Novgorod and the Msta river via the Route from the Varangians to the Greeks to the Byzantine Empire via the Black Sea slave trade, or to the Abbasid Caliphate via the Caspian Sea (and the Bukhara slave trade) via the Volga trade route.
People taken captive during the Viking raids across Europe, such as Ireland, could be sold to Moorish Spain via the Dublin slave trade or transported to Hedeby or Brännö and from there via the Volga trade route to present day Russia, where Slavic slaves and furs were sold to Muslim merchants in exchange for Arab silver dirham and silk, which have been found in Birka, Wollin and Dublin;The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 3, C.900-c.1024. (1995). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 91 initially this trade route between Europe and the Abbasid Caliphate passed via the Khazar Khaganate,The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives. Selected Papers from the Jerusalem 1999 International Khazar Colloquium. (2007). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 232 but from the early 10th century onward it went via Volga Bulgaria and from there by caravan to Khwarazm, to the Samanid slave market in Central Asia and finally via Iran to the Abbasid Caliphate.The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 3, C.900-c.1024. (1995). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 504
Archbishop Rimbert of Bremen (died 888) reported that he witnessed a "large throng of captured Christians being hauled away" in the Viking port of Hedeby in Denmark, one of whom was a woman who sang psalms to identify herself as a Christian nun, and who the bishop was able to free by exchanging his horse for her freedom.The slave trade of European women to the Middle East and Asia from antiquity to the ninth century. by Kathryn Ann Hain. Department of History The University of Utah. December 2016. Copyright © Kathryn Ann Hain 2016. All Rights Reserved. https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6616pp7 . p. 244-246
This trade was the source of the Arab dirham silver hoards found in Scandinavia and functioned from at least 786 until 1009, when such coins have been found there, and it would have been so lucrative that it contributed to the continuing Viking raids across Eastern Europe, which was used by the Vikings as a slave supply source for this trade with the Islamic world.The slave trade of European women to the Middle East and Asia from antiquity to the ninth century. by Kathryn Ann Hain. Department of History The University of Utah. December 2016. Copyright © Kathryn Ann Hain 2016. All Rights Reserved. https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6616pp7 . Among such hoards can be mentioned the Spillings Hoard and the Sundveda Hoard.
One of the only accounts describing Norse slave practices in detail and first person is the Arabic merchant Ibn Fadlan meeting Volga Vikings. Describing Vikings using the Volga trade route using Saqaliba or Slavic slaves as translators when trading. There he describes the Norse ship burials only known in Norse society before the Viking expansion in 800 AD into present day Russia and Ukraine and that a slave girl was sacrificed to follow her master. Norse burials found in Sweden and Norway indicate that slaves were sacrificed in Sweden to follow their masters to the afterlife. However, Swedish archaeology shows that mostly male slaves were killed to follow their master into the afterlife and not females. Sacrificed female slaves have however been found sacrificed in Norway, where a woman found in the grave showed signs of having her throat slit in a similar manner to the execution described by Ibn Fadlan.Simone Liw de Bernardi (2020) Vikingatidens begravningsritualer – avrättad för att följa en annan i graven, Uppsala university" British Archaeology magazine. Vol. 59. Britarch.ac.uk. June 2001. Archived from the original on 2011-02-13. Retrieved 2014-02-03.
During the 11th century, the Viking nations of Denmark, Norway and Sweden became Christian, which made it impossible for them to continue to conduct slave raids toward Christian Europe and sell Christian Europeans to Islamic slave traders. The establishment of Kievan Rus likely also decreased the number of slaves taken in raids and limited it to the local market for slaves in Sweden, according to Lena Björkman. Slavery as such was gradually replaced by serfdom () in the 13th century.
Sites Few sites remain that are directly linked to the Viking Age slavery, but the circular forts known as Trelleborge (Slave fortresses), have since 2023 been recognized as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Danish transatlantic slave trade The involvement in the transatlantic slave trade began in the mid-1700s when they would transport African peoples to what was known then as The Gold Coast (located in the city of Accra in Ghana). Fort Christiansborg was the Danish fort that controlled the incomings and outgoings of slaves, the base in Ghana for the Danes.
Danish West Indies
The Danes had control over the Danish West Indies for around 250 years, from 1672 up until its sale to the U.S. in 1917. The Danish West Indies played a significant role in the Danish slave trade as this was the final destination for many of the slaves. The three islands that made up the Danish West Indies included Saint John, Saint Thomas, and Saint Croix.
Sugar, coffee, and tobacco were the primary resources that were cultivated on the islands as they all provided the Danes with significant returns. Plantation work was perceived as extremely demanding, especially for female slaves who were unable to maintain the high degree of manual labour that was required. The standard of living on the islands was very poor, with many slaves often catching fatal diseases or dying from exhaustion and malnutrition. A common misconception was that slaves were given enough food provisions weekly that would sustain them during their work. However, according to Martens (2016), these provisions were unsatisfactory and did not meet the minimum requirements to live healthily.
In 1915, negotiations between America and Denmark began over the sale of the three islands (Saint Thomas, Saint Croix, Saint John). The U.S. became increasingly concerned that Germany would make an attempt to acquire the islands and decided to act upon their instinct. Eventually, the U.S. bought the islands for US$25,000,000 of gold coin. The islands are now known as the U.S Virgin Islands.
Saint Thomas Saint Thomas was the first island in the Danish West Indies that was used by the Danes for slave labour. It was the order of the then King Christian V to seize the island with the sole aim of acquiring the plantations on the island, which included primarily sugar and tobacco produce. A problem the Danish West India Company soon encountered was that convicts were terrible workers, and it was for this reason that they came to the realisation that colonists from neighbouring countries who had access to African slaves were much better suited to the nature of the work.