[Nateman]

White people were slaves in Islamic countries once. How about we shake down these oil rich princes instead?

[Verginius Rufus]

The Turks used to raid villages near the coasts of the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas and take people away as slaves, along with the "devshirme" or enslavement of Christian boys in rural areas of the Ottoman Empire. The last raid on Sardinia was in 1815 or 1816.

In 1715 the village where my ancestors lived was raided and 24 people were taken away into slavery--one was ransomed by relatives but the rest spent their lives as slaves of Muslim masters. Some if not all of them must have been related to me.

People traveling by sea in the Mediterranean were in danger of being captured and becoming galley slaves on Turkish ships.