ABSTRACT
The oasis of Murzuk was for centuries the great reception-centre and market for slaves crossing the mid-Sahara. As late as the 1850s, it was still served by three of the main slaving roads out of Black Africa, drawing caravans from as far west as the Niger Bend markets and from as far east as the Sultanate of Wadai. Murzuk in turn offered open roads northwards to the slaving ports of Tripoli and Misurata and, through Augila oasis, either to Benghazi or onwards through the Western Desert to the swarming slave markets of Egypt.
