One of the least-known episodes in European history is the age of the Barbary Pirates. There was an excellent British TV documentary on this not long ago – for more see here.
From the late Middle Ages down to the early 19th century, pirates from the Barbary Coast – roughly modern Morocco and Algeria – terrorised the Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic coasts as far north as the British Isles. The pirates captured numerous Europeans and carried them back to North Africa, where they were sold as slaves. Many of them were sailors and fisherman captured at sea, but the pirates also raided on-shore and took male and female captives.
Based on historical records, some historians have estimated the cumulative number of captives at over a million. While this might seem implausibly high, over a period of 300 years a million is less than 4,000 a year. Assume that 20 ships made 10 raids a year, and took on average 20 captives per raid, and you get there.
Of course, the main point of interest for GNXPers is what impact this made on the gene pool in North Africa.
The wealthier captives were often ransomed by their relatives, and even the poorer ones were sometimes bought by Christian philanthropists and returned to Europe (in Britain funds were set up for this purpose). Of those who stayed behind, the men were mostly worked to death as galley slaves, while the younger boys might be castrated. Either way, no contribution to the gene pool.
For women and girls, it was a different matter. European women were much in demand for the harems of wealthy Arabs and Turks. It wasn’t always a fate worse than death. One captured English girl became the Queen of Morocco.
Nor was this the only source of European genes in the Muslim world. In the Levant (modern Israel and Lebanon) the armies of the Crusaders must have left their imprint. So must the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire.
But probably the main source of European genes, from the early Middle Ages at least down to the 17th Century, was the steady stream of slaves from South Russia, the Ukraine, and the Caucasus. No harem was complete without them. I haven’t seen any numbers, but cumulatively they may have run into millions.
So it is reasonable to assume that there is a significant European component in the gene pool of North Africa and the Middle East, from sources more recent than the Roman Empire. If ‘European’ traits, such as blue eyes or fair hair, are found in these populations, it shouldn’t be surprising, and there is no need to go back very far in history to find an explanation.
DAVID BURBRIDGE
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