The Genoese slave trade refers to the slave trade conducted by the Republic of Genoa, which was a major business during primarily the Middle Ages.
In the 13th century, the Genoese established colonies in Crimea, and acquired slaves of various religions to sell to either Southern Europe via Crete and the Balearic Islands, or to the Middle East directly via the Black Sea. The Genoese met competition in the Venetian slave trade of the Republic of Venice.
Between 1441 and 1774, the Crimean Khanate and the Nogai Horde conducted slave raids throughout lands primarily controlled by Russia and Poland–Lithuania. Concentrated in Eastern Europe, but also stretching to the Caucasus and parts of Central Europe, these raids were often supported by the Ottoman Empire and involved the transportation of European men, women, and children to the Muslim world, where they were put on the market and sold as part of the Crimean slave trade and the Ottoman slave trade. The regular abductions of people over the course of numerous incursions by the Crimeans and the Nogais greatly drained Eastern Europe's human and economic resources, consequently playing an important role in the emergence of the semi-militarized Cossacks, who organized retaliatory campaigns against the raiders and their Ottoman backers.
Trading posts in Crimea had previously been established by the Genoese and the Venetians to facilitate earlier Western European slave routes. The Crimean–Nogai raids largely targeted the "Wild Fields" of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, which extends about 800 kilometres (500 mi) north of the Black Sea and which now contains the majority of the combined population of southeastern Ukraine and southwestern Russia.
The Venetian slave trade refers to the slave trade conducted by the Republic of Venice, primarily from the Early Middle Ages to the Late Middle Ages. The slave trade was a contributing factor to the early prosperity of the young Republic of Venice as a major trading empire in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Venetian slave trade was divided into several separate trading routes. In the Balkan slave trade, Venetian merchants bought Pagan war captives and then sold them to Southern Europe or to the Middle East via the Aegean Islands. In the later Black Sea slave trade, the Venetians established colonies in the Crimea, and acquired slaves of various religions to sell to Southern Europe via Crete and the Balearic Islands, or to the Middle East directly via the Black Sea. The Venetians met competition in the slave trade by the Republic of Genoa.