Afro-Turks are Turkish people of African Zanj descent, who trace their origin to the Ottoman slave trade like the Afro-Abkhazians. Afro-Turk population is estimated to be between 5,000 and 20,000 people. Afro-Turks are distinct from African immigrants in Turkey, which number around 1.5 million individuals as of 2017 according to state-owned Anadolu Agency.
Afro-Turks
Afro-Ottoman official Hamatar Aga, 1710
Afro-Ottoman wrestler and his European opponent, 1710
Chief black eunuch in the Imperial Harem in 1912.
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire was a major institution and a significant part of the Ottoman Empire's economy and traditional society. The main sources of slaves were wars and politically organized enslavement expeditions in the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Southeast Europe, and Africa. It has been reported that the selling price of slaves decreased after large military operations. In Constantinople, the administrative and political center of the Ottoman Empire, about a fifth of the 16th- and 17th-century population consisted of slaves. Statistics of these centuries suggest that Istanbul's additional slave imports from the Black Sea slave trade have totaled around 2.5 million from 1453 to 1700.
Ottomans with European slaves depicted in a 1608 engraving in Salomon Schweigger's account of his 1578 journey in the Ottoman Empire.
An Ottoman painting of Balkan children taken as soldier-slaves, or janissaries.
Ottoman torture of slaves, 1684
Slave market with Europeans being sold in Algiers, Ottoman Algeria, 1684