Khivan slave trade

The Khanate of Khiva was a major center of slave trade in Central Asia from the 17th century until the Russian conquest in 1873.

In Bukhara, Samarkand, Karakul, Karshi, and Charju, mainly Persians, Russians, and some Kalmyk slaves, were traded by Turkmens, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz.

Turkmen tribal groups performed regular slave raids, referred to as alaman, toward two sources of slaves; Russian and German settlers along the Ural, and Persian pilgrims to Mashad, two categories who as Christians and Shia-Muslims respectively were seen as religiously legitimate to target for enslavement.

[7] Thousands of Bashkirs would be massacred or taken captive by Kazakhs over the course of the uprising, whether in an effort to demonstrate loyalty to the Tsarist state, or as a purely opportunistic maneuver.

[14] During the early modern era (16th century–18th century), Khiva and Bukhara imported large numbers of Europeans slaves kidnapped by the Crimean Tatars (normally Russians).

In 1717, 3,000 Russian slaves consisting of men, women, and children were sold in Khiva by Kazakh and Kyrgyz tribesmen.

[18] In the period between 1764 and 1803, according to data collected by the Orenburg Commission, twenty Russian caravans were attacked and plundered.

[24] During the first half of the 19th century alone, some one million Persians, as well as an unknown number of Russians, were enslaved and transported to Central Asian khanates.

[citation needed] According to Josef Wolff (Report of 1843–1845) the population of the Khanate of Bukhara was 1,200,000, of whom 200,000 were Persian slaves.

The royal harem of the ruler of the Khanate of Khiva (1511–1920) in Central Asia (Uzbekistan) was composed of both legal wives and slave concubines.

[29] Only the khan's legal wives were allowed to give birth to his children, and the slave concubines who conceived were given forced abortions.

Major Todd, the senior British political officer stationed in Herat (in Afghanistan) dispatched Captain James Abbott, disguised as an Afghan, on 24 December 1839, for Khiva.

He left on 7 March 1840, for Fort Alexandrovsk, and was subsequently betrayed by his guide, robbed, then released when the bandits realized the origin and destination of his letter.

The freed slaves and Shakespear arrived in Fort Alexandrovsk on 15 August 1840, and Russia lost its primary motive for the conquest of Khiva, for the time being.