捕捉、販賣、購買奴隸的行為。奴隸在全世界歷史上存在已久，奴隸買賣也相當普遍。奴隸的來源主要來自幾個人口密集區：自古代到19世紀的斯拉夫人（Slavs）及鄰近的伊朗人（Iranians）；基督教時代的撒哈拉沙漠以南非洲人（sub-Saharan Africans）；維京人時代的日爾曼人（Germanic）、塞爾特人（Celtic）、羅曼語系人（Romance peoples）。奴隸買賣有複雜的交易網絡：例如在9至10世紀，維京人會把東斯拉夫人賣給阿拉伯或猶太的中間交易商，交易商再把奴隸帶到法國的凡爾登（Verdun）和里昂（Leon），然後可能就賣到摩爾人居住的西班牙地區（Moorish Spain）或是北非。這條跨越大西洋的奴隸買賣，應該當時最重要的路線。在非洲，人們會買賣婦女和兒童作為服勞役及協助傳後代的奴隸，但不會買賣男人來當奴隸；西元1500年開始，男人開始被捕擄並帶到海港賣給歐洲人，再轉運到加勒比海或巴西，然後在拍賣會公開出售並被帶到新大陸（New World）。到了17至18世紀，非洲奴隸多被賣到加勒比海地區採製糖蜜，這些糖蜜在美國殖民地製成蘭姆酒後，則再銷回非洲換取更多的奴隸。
slave trade
Capturing, selling, and buying of slaves. Slavery has existed throughout the world throughout history; trading in slaves has been equally universal. Slaves were taken from great population reservoirs: the Slavs and contiguous Iranians from antiquity to the 19th century, the sub-Saharan Africans during the Christian era, and the Germanic, Celtic, and Romance peoples during the Viking era. Elaborate trade networks developed: for example, in the 9th-10th century, Vikings might sell East Slavic slaves to Arab and Jewish traders, who would take them to Verdun and León, whence they might be sold throughout Moorish Spain and North Africa. The transatlantic slave trade is perhaps the best known. In Africa, women and children but not men were wanted as slaves for labor and for lineage incorporation; from c. 1500, captive men were taken to the coast and sold to Europeans. They were then transported to the Caribbean or Brazil, where they were sold at auction and taken throughout the New World. In the 17th-18th century, African slaves were traded in the Caribbean for molasses, which was made in the American colonies into rum and traded back to Africa for more slaves.
