How many slaves were there worldwide in 1800?

Answer 1

This will have to be an educated guess, as we are not only talking about black slaves in the Americas and many countries did not keep count. But here goes:

. The US had about 4 million black slaves; the other Americas about 1 million

. Russia had 23 million (white, Russian) privately held slaves plus some 10 million State-held slaves

. In Africa itself, on average over 35% of its total population was held as slaves by other Africans, exact numbers unknown; in Madagascar it was over 50%

. In Asia, there were at least 30 million slaves; half the Korean population consisted of slaves, one third of the population of Burma and Thailand; and India had some 8 million

. In the Middle East and Arabia, several million slaves were held (exact numbers unknown) among them many Europeans. Even today, an estimated 300,000 slaves are held in the Arabic countries.

Although the transatlantic slave trade has always been in the limelight, it concerned only a minor part of worldwide slavery which must have amounted to well over a hundred million people around 1800.