Slavery in Finland

Slave trade

Finland did not conduct any known slave trade itself. However, for centuries, it was subjected to slave raids, primarily from the east (particularly modern-day Russia). As a vulnerable border region between Sweden and Russia, Finland often became a battleground during their frequent wars.

As a religious border zone—first between the Christian and pagan worlds, and later between Catholic and Protestant Europe and the Orthodox East—Finnish people were often viewed as religiously legitimate targets for enslavement. Their typically blonde features were considered exotic and desirable in southern slave markets.

Finnish people were trafficked for enslavement in Russia or further south along river routes to the Black Sea slave markets, as well as Central Asia and the Middle East.

Byzantine slave trade (5th–13th centuries)

During the Middle Ages, the coasts of the Baltic Sea were a source of slaves for the Black Sea slave trade, transporting slaves down river routes heading southeast. The region was also a center of first the Viking slave trade and later the Baltic slave trade.

Christians and Muslims banned the enslavement of people of their own faith but viewed pagans as legitimate targets for slavery, causing the pagans of northeastern Europe to become prime targets for slave traders after the rest of Europe had become Christian by the 12th century. The pagan Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Livonians, and Latgallians raided each other, as well as Ingria and Novgorod, during the 12th and 13th centuries, selling war captives south to the Black Sea slave trade.

Christian Rus' merchants from Kievan Rus' raided pagan Estonians to capture and sell them in the slave trade, as they were considered legitimate targets due to their pagan faith.

When the Norse Vikings converted to Christianity and ended their piracy in the 11th century, they were succeeded by pagan pirates from the Baltics, who raided the coasts of the Baltic Sea—including the newly Christianized Sweden and Finland—to capture slaves. The island of Saaremaa served as a base for Baltic pirates, who were known for selling captive women in the slave trade. In 1226, pagan Baltic pirates from Saaremaa conducted a slave raid against the newly Christianized Sweden, capturing many Swedish women and girls for the purpose of selling them as slaves.

When the Viking slave trade ended in the mid-11th century, the old slave trade route between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea and Central Asia via the Russian rivers was maintained by pagan Baltic slave traders. They sold slaves through the Daugava River to the Black Sea. This route became the only remaining slave trade route in Europe after the Western European slave markets declined in the 12th century.

Italian slave trade (13th–15th centuries)

During this period, religious conviction played an important role in determining who could be legitimately enslaved. Christians could not enslave other Christians, and Muslims could not enslave other Muslims. However, since both Christians and Muslims regarded pagans as legitimate targets for slavery, the remaining pagans of northeastern Europe became an economic choice for slave traders.

By the 13th century, all of Europe had become Christian except for the Baltics, Eastern Finland and Karelia. These regions served as supply zones via the Baltic and Kievan Rus' slave trades for slaves destined for the Black Sea slave trade. From there, Italian slave traders trafficked them to Southern Europe and the Middle East.

In the late Middle Ages (13th–15th centuries), the Black Sea was the center of the Genoese slave trade and the Venetian slave trade, which exported slaves from Eastern Europe via their controlled cities in Crimea to Spain, Italy, and the Middle East.

Crimean slave trade and Russia (16th–18th centuries)

Slave raids carried out by private Russian traders across the border into Eastern Finland, capturing Finns and trafficking them south to the Black Sea began in the Middle Ages and are estimated to have continued throughout the 17th century.

During the Great Northern War (1700–1721), Russia invaded the eastern provinces of the Swedish Empire in Finland, Estonia and Livonia in the Baltics. Since the 15th century, the Russian army had permitted private soldiers to capture and sell war captives. During the Great Northern War, many Russian soldiers captured Livonians, Finns, and Baltic civilians (particularly children from the Swedish provinces), and sold them, with some ending up in the Black Sea slave trade and Persia.

A notable event was the fall of Narva, where Lovisa von Burghausen became a well-known victim, captured by Russian soldiers with the intent to sell her into slavery. Another case involved Annika Svahn and Afrosinya. Lovisa, along with two other female slaves (one from Finland and one from Narva) were sold on the Russian slave market in Moscow. The Finnish woman was sold to an Armenian, the woman from Narva to a Russian clerk, and Lovisa to a Turkish-Ottoman merchant.

The Swedish province of Finland endured oppression during the Russian invasion and occupation known as the Great Wrath (1714–1721). The Russian military abducted and enslaved people, some of whom were trafficked through Russia and the Crimean slave trade to Persia and the Middle East, where blonde people were considered exotic. It is estimated that between 20,000 and 30,000 people were abducted, and about a quarter of Finnish farmhouses were reportedly empty by the end of the occupation. Finnish historian Teemu Keskisarja has suggested that during the Great Northern War, more slaves were taken from Finland to Russia in proportion to the population than from many regions of Africa to the Americas.

Between 10,000 and 20,000 people were taken to serve as slave labourers during the building of Saint Petersburg. Approximately 2,000 men were forcibly enlisted in the Russian army, but many women and children were also abducted as serfs or sex slaves by Russian officers, some of whom sold them into the Crimean slave trade. About 4,600 people—most of them children—were abducted from Ostrobothnia and Eastern Finland. Annika Svahn, Kustaa Lillbäck and (likely) Afrosinya are examples of Finnish people abducted by the Russians during the Great Wrath.

Many Swedish Empire citizens captured and sold by Russian soldiers were trafficked through the Crimean slave trade to the slave market in Constantinople, where the Swedish ambassador managed to secure the freedom of some—many of whom were women. From June 1710, the Swedish ambassador Thomas Funck made trips to the slave market in Constantinople to buy Swedish Empire citizens. These trips were documented by his legation priest, Sven Agrell. Agrell recorded, for example, the purchase of a "carpenter's daughter from Narva" for $82, a "Captain's wife" for $240, Catharina Pereswetoff-Morath, age 18, for $275, and an entire Livonian family—Anders Jonsson with his wife and children. Those who were bought free with Swedish funds were escorted to King Charles XII's war camp in Bender and returned to Sweden with him. Although many Swedish Empire citizens were freed by the Swedish ambassador, limited wartime finances made it impossible to buy all the Swedish citizens in slavery. Many young women and children were far too expensive, and as a result, many were purchased by private buyers and remained in slavery in the Ottoman Empire.

Atlantic slave trade

People of Finnish origin were involved in Swedish colonies in West Africa, North America (New Sweden) and the Caribbean, which were implicated in the Atlantic slave trade. Slave labor was used in the Swedish colony of Saint Barthélemy. The first Governor of St. Barthélemy, Major Salomon von Rajalin, was a Swede of Finnish origin who promoted the development of St. Barthélemy as a hub of the Atlantic slave trade. The historian Seppo Sivonen and the documentary filmmaker Jouko Aaltonen have asserted that Finland, as the eastern province of the Sweden, benefited from the global slave trade both through the profit of individual Finnish investors and from profits flowing into the Swedish State Treasury.

Legacy

On 3 September 2022 in Muhos, Northern Ostrobothnia (Finland), a memorial called Orjaleiripatsas, designed by Antero Kassinen, was inaugurated in memory of the Finnish victims of the slave trade during the Russian occupation known as the Great Wrath.

Some critics have alleged that the enslavement of Finns was rarely discussed in Finnish historiography until the role of Finns in the African slave trade became more well known. The history professor Holger Weiss claimed that the debate about Finnish involvement in the African slave trade has been "challenged by an equally forgotten narrative" about the enslavement of Finns and Karelians, writing that the issue "hardly figured in Finnish historiography until Finnish historian Jukka Korpela published his seminal work on Finland and Karelia as a slaving zone during the medieval period in 2014... The collective memory of Finns must commemorate the sufferings of Finns during Russian occupation rather than alleged Finnish participation in Swedish colonialism, the counter-narrative to Finnish involvement in the transatlantic slave trade therefore claims."