The Archaeologist

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The Barbary Pirates & England's White Slaves

Did you know that at the same time that the British were involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, white Britons were being sold into slavery in Africa?

For over 200 years, from the reign of James I right up until George III, Muslim pirates from the abducted thousands of British sailors and sold them in the slave markets on the Barbary Coast in North Africa.

They even landed in Cornwall raiding coastal villages and taking men, women and children into captivity. It is a fascinating and little known story from British history.