Danish slave trade
After many years of slavery in the Danish West Indies, Christian VII decided to abolish slave trading.
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.
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.
[10] People taken captive during the Viking raids across Europe, such as Ireland, could be sold to Moorish Spain via the Dublin slave trade[11] 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;[12] initially this trade route between Europe and the Abbasid Caliphate passed via the Khazar Khaganate,[13] 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.
One of the only accounts describing Norse slave practices in detail and first person is the Arabic merchant Ibn Fadlan meeting Volga Vikings.
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).
[20] 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.
[23] 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.
Taphus were essentially beer houses and halls that produced vast amounts of the alcohol to be transported overseas.
Also, the severity of these impacts ranged massively as some were fatal and others purely menial consequences that arose as a result of a significant power imbalance.
[28] From 1733 (after the concept of New World Slavery was introduced), owners of the sugar plantations would threaten any slave that was abusive or disrespectful towards white people.
[29] A key motive for the Danish government to transport slaves to the West Indies was the potential economic gain.
[30] On top of the significant returns produced by the sugar production, many Danish citizens were employed on the plantations, contributing to a low unemployment rate in Denmark at the time.
[29] In 1792, Christian VII of Denmark announced the Danes would be abolishing their slave trade practices in the Danish West Indies.
As such, Denmark wanted to become the first European nation to abolish the slave trade and ensure they did so before the British, which would, in turn, provide them with international recognition.
In his apology to the Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo-Addo, Anders claimed "Nothing can justify the exploitation of men, women and children in which Denmark took part".
[32] Many years before the apology, Denmark (through its DANIDA Agency) had been helping Ghana with both social and economic sectors, human rights, and good governance.
