Slaveholding in Ottoman central lands (1460-1880)

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Using probate inventories from multiple locations in Ottoman central lands, this article offers a quantitative perspective on long-term patterns of slaveholding, slave prices and demand for slaves. Findings include a continual decline in slave-ownership and related indicators across all social groups and strata, and a decline in prices in connection with trafficking from Africa in the eighteenth century. Investment preferences of the top buyers and composition of the slave population also indicate that characteristics of the demand for slaves was not fixed either in any period or uniform across regions.