5 ms·
The Barbary pirates routinely castrated their slaves, precluding them from doing much DNA mixing.
by dudeinjapan 5y ago
The Barbary pirates routinely castrated their slaves, precluding them from doing much DNA mixing.
- zeristor 5y agoYikes. But didn’t they also take female slaves too, some being concubines?
- dudeinjapan 5y agoYes, certainly, they raided European coastal villages. But AFAIK the majority of captives would have come from captured merchant ships, which were exclusively men. The pirates weren't so into keeping accurate records.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ransom1538 5y agoThere are volumes of books on it. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51hXkmBB-YL.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51hXkmBB-YL.jpg
- barry-cotter 5y agoSource? Castration had very high mortality and I’m not aware of any historical slave trade where it was routinely done.
- dudeinjapan 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Muslim_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Musl... "Castration: A fair proportion of male slaves were imported as eunuchs... in practice, emasculation was frequent" (and yes, it did also carry a high rate of death.)
- biorach 5y agothat text doesn't appear on that page. and that's a very generalised statement covering a long period of time and wide area. My understanding was that adults were rarely castrated, rather boys from certain regions were targeted (I believe boys from modern Sudan were preferred by the Ottomans)
- ttyprintk 5y agoIt appears on my version of that page. But, this is such a well-documented aspect of Ottoman slavery that it doesn’t depend on any particular Wikipedia page. This was known to be full-on castration.
- hef19898 5y agoThe Barbary pirates weren't Ottomans so. They traded with them and, if memory serves well, operated under Ottoman sponsorship at times.
- mda 5y agoRulers of Barbary pirates, famous ex corsair Ottoman chief admiral Barbaros Hayreddin, his brother Oruc were Ottoman.
- dudeinjapan 5y agoThen they knew how their customers expected their goods delivered!
- swayvil 5y agoDo something similar to their brain and you'd have a ... Mentat? It opens up so much possibility. Modified humans as household/industrial appliances. Tomorrow's XBox might be your genetically tweaked second cousin.
- mda 5y agoThis statement is doubtful. There were castrated slaves (Eunuchs) but were they mostly sold by Barbary pirates? Not really.