NERI AFRICANI SCHIAVI IN EUROPA: DALLA CIRCUMNAVIGAZIONE DELL'AFRICA ALLA PROIBIZIONE DELLA TRATTA (1444-1815)

The significance of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and Black slavery in the Americas neglected the consideration of slave trade towards the Mediterranean countries and in particular towards the Iberian Peninsula as well as the slaves'diasporas in Southern Europe and even beyond the Alps and the Pyrenees. Dimensions and characteristics of that presence, conditions of employment and living, and the final destiny of Black African slaves in Europe from the middle of the 15th century to the Napoleonic era received even less attention at least until the last two decades. Portuguese slave trade soon combined with the circumnavigation of Africa along the West Africa coast and transported in Europe more than one hundred thousand Blacks from 1444 to the mid-16th century. In addition to the Atlantic and Trans-Saharan trade, the slavery in Mediterranean societies during the modern era was nurtured also by captured men during military operations and actions of pirates: Blacks were thus partly captured while being carried eastward toward the Middle East or otherwise they were already involved, as slave or freedman, into the Mediterranean world. In consideration of Blacks or others slaves'impact over European population – up to 10 percent of the total population in some cities or areas and a few points in percentage in relation to the entire population of a single state – we cannot consider European societies as slavery societies (usually from one quarter to half or more of the population), but 'society with slaves'. The Black slaves – men and women, children, youth, adults, and elders – were utilized and exploited in various ways in the same manner than other slaves for origins and affiliations. They were employed as labors in domestic or public areas also with tasks of trust and responsibility, as objects of ostentation, adornment, companionship, and concubinage. During the 1450-1550 century in the Iberian Peninsula, Southern Italy, and in the Italian islands the Black slaves represented the majority of slave population, afterwards reduced more or less to the same percentage of other non-Black slave (Arabs, Ottoman subjects of various regions of the empire, and other minorities). The case of Black returnees was very uncommon; the main part of Blacks in Mediterranean societies spent their entire live as slaves or in one way or another became freeman and were assimilated into the society of adoption where some Africans could reach prominence and prestige. Some examples f