Slavery in the Black Sea Region

During the medieval period, people in the Black Sea region both owned slaves and exported them. The majority of Black Sea slaves were not born into that status; they became enslaved either through capture or sale. Once enslaved, they might be kept locally for domestic and sexual service, or they might be commodified and sold into long-distance commercial networks that extended east toward China and west toward the Mediterranean. An end to enslavement could not be taken for granted: some slaves were ransomed, some were individually manumitted, some escaped, but many died in slavery.