History Main / SlaveMarket

* In ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', Paradise Falls used to be a famous super market before the bombs fell. In the Capital Wasteland, it has been repurposed into the headquarters of a local band of slavers. While the player cannot buy slaves, they can choose to help free the ones inside and kill the slavers if they choose, or become work as a slaver to earn some extra caps.

* In ''Anime/TalesFromEarthSea'', the city to which Arren and Sparrowhawk arrive has a booming slave trade, and it's not long until the hero runs afoul of [[TheDragon Hare]] and rescues [[RomanticInterest Theru]] from the said slavers.

* From ''Videogame/NeverwinterNights:
** In [[NeverwinterNights/HordesOfTheUnderdark Hordes of the Underdark]]'', the illithid ({{Cthulhumanoid}} monsters with PsychicPowers which they use to enslave members of other races) run slave auctions at a trade outpost called Zorvak'mur. If you participate in the auction and win, you can choose to give your new slave her freedom, or send her to the [[GladiatorGames gladiator pit]] to fight other slaves for the illithid's amusement.

* In ''VideoGame/ADanceWithRogues'', after the Princess' party is captured by the drow on their incursion into the Underdark, they all end up on the slave market and bought by different nobles. The Princess then has to [[PuttingTheBandBackTogether reassemble them]] after breaking free herself.

* In ''VideoGame/FallFromHeaven'', the Undercouncil can vote the Slave Trade resolution, allowing members to buy and sell slaves.

* In ''Videogame/NeverwinterNights: [[NeverwinterNights/HordesOfTheUnderdark Hordes of the Underdark]]'', the illithid ({{Cthulhumanoid}} monsters with PsychicPowers which they use to enslave members of other races) run slave auctions at a trade outpost called Zorvak'mur. If you participate in the auction and win, you can choose to give your new slave her freedom, or send her to the [[GladiatorGames gladiator pit]] to fight other slaves for the illithid's amusement.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Art]]

* ComicBook/JudgeDredd is sold in a market in the Cursed Earth in the course of the “Judge Child” saga. It’s all part of a cunning plan, of course.

[[folder:Theater]]

In fact, in SwordAndSorcery fantasy stories and SwordAndSandal stories set in ancient history, the slave market may be treated as just part of the usual setting furniture, and if not exactly treated with approval, not a major moral issue either; slavery is just something (bad) that happens in such settings, so of course there are slave markets. In visual works, the slave market scene may serve as a rather sleazy excuse to slip in some {{Fanservice}}, an amazing proportion of the slaves being young, attractive, and under-dressed (for customer inspection, of course), and often [[BeautifulSlaveGirl female]]. (This is a habit that goes back at least to Victorian painters, who took all sorts of "classical" scenes as excuses to slip a lot of nudity past the period's active MoralGuardians.) In stories set any time in the last couple of hundred years, though, slavery is almost always treated as unambiguously evil, with the slave market being a big sign of the society's moral degeneracy -- although there may still be some fanservice. However, if set in the present day, it'll probably be an underground slave market managed by HumanTraffickers and depicted as nightmarishly grim. It also shows up in some sci-fi and DaysOfFuturePast fiction, often as an institution found on a PlanetOfHats which practices slavery, which are more in line with fantasy portrayals.

* The [[TheWarOnTerror Islamic State]] had markets where it sold the "human loot" kidnapped during warfare against non-Sunni Muslims (the Shia or other Muslims, Christians, Yazidis etc.) in Syria and Iraq, which they proclaimed to be permitted by Islamic law. Many of the women were taken as {{sex slave}}s, and they had even published ''pamphlets'' on how to carry out this practice.

* The Victorian-period liking for {{fanservice}}-ish slave market paintings, as mentioned above, can be illustrated in a few seconds with Google image search. The results may be NSFW (in an artistic Victorian way), because that was the point. Or Wiki/TheOtherWiki has [[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Slave_trade_in_art a list of examples]].

[[quoteright:340:[[ComicBook/JudgeDredd https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/judgedreddslavemarket.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:340:Possibly not the safest purchase...]]

* Quite a few such markets appear in ''Literature/ThaisOfAthens'', owing to the nature of the setting. One particular example would be where Thais purchases Hesione (a Theban girl who was MadeASlave after AlexanderTheGreat's army sacked Thebes).

** In the ''Literature/ProvostsDog Trilogy'' the main Chorus slave market is called the Market of Sorrows. A significant source of its supply is actually Lower City parents selling children they can't afford to feed. By the end of the trilogy [[spoiler: the king decides to end Tortall's participation in the slave trade, it not being essential to the economy and having played a pivotal role in his noble's kidnapping of his son and attempted rebellion.]]
** In the ''[[Literature/DaughterOfTheLioness Trickster]]'' books Aly is [[CallToAdventure captured by raiders]] and sold at a slave market in the Copper Isles. Thanks to a god having his eye on her for his own purposes, she manages to avoid [[SexSlave the expected outcome]]. Due to FantasticRacism and raiding of nearby countries, the Copper Isles has a flourishing slave trade; [[spoiler: again, by the end of the duology, this has [[SlaveRevolt ended]] ]].

* In the early Literature/{{Discworld}} stories, the setting in general and the city of Ankh-Morpork in particular are parodies of SwordAndSorcery fiction, so of course there are slave markets; in the first novel, ''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic'', they're one of the sights which Twoflower the tourist insists on visiting.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

* Mecca was a major slave trade center, due to pilgrim funding their travel by buying and selling slaves on the road.

* The [[TheWarOnTerror Islamic State]] has markets where are sold the "human loot" kidnapped during warfare against non-Sunni Muslims (the Shia or other Muslims, Christians, Yazidis etc.) in Syria and Iraq, which they proclaim to be permitted by Islamic law. Many of the women are taken as {{sex slave}}s, and they have even published ''pamphlets'' on how to carry out this practice.

* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', these exist in the cities of [[CaptainObvious Slaver's Bay]] (which arguably serve as the Slave Market for the whole world).

* In ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'', the main characters are [[MadeASlave captured by slave traders]]. Caspian is rescued/bought by one of the Lords they have been sent to find who recognises his father in him, but the rest are sent to a slave market. Caspian comes and rescues them before their new owners can take them away; no one was willing to take Eustace even for free.

* One of the historical giants of the slave trade was none other than [[UsefulNotes/AncientGreece Athens]], which was happy to be middleman for all Greece and much of the Eastern Mediterranean, and also bought so many slaves that at its height, a majority of people living in Athens were slaves.
* [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire Rome]] had a massive ongoing slave trade, with slave trading being fairly common in the various fora (although not nearly as common as in Classical Athens). Freedmen were a major social class in Roman society, and the slaves had to bought and sold somewhere. When Rome took the Eastern Mediterranean, it set up a major slave clearinghouse on the island of Delos in the Aegean, capable of moving over ''10,000'' slaves ''per day.''
* In medieval Europe, the biggest slave market by far was in Bari, a town at the "Achilles tendon" of the Italian "boot" and the UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire's last toehold (heh, heh) on the peninsula. The...erm..."merchandise" tended to be prisoners of the wars of the [[UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire German emperors]] and Italian merchant city-states (especially Venice) against the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe and the Balkans...hence the term "slave." The place was convenient because it was controlled by the Byzantines (until the Sicilian Normans under Robert Guiscard took it...) and was on the major trade route from Venice (which besides taking a bunch of slaves from Dalmatia was also where the HRE went to dump its Poles and Wends and Rus) to the Middle East and Byzantium (which were the main places buying these slaves).

* The [[TheWarOnTerror Islamic State]] had markets where are sold the "human loot" kidnapped during warfare against non-Sunni in Syria and Iraq.
* After the fall of Qadaffi's government in 2011, Libya descended back into permanent tribal warfare. Slave markets made a return as well, the "merchandise" being primarily composed of captured sub-saharan migrants.

A SettingTrope, this is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a place where people meet to buy and sell slaves]]. It can be a stand-alone thing, or it can be part of [[BazaarOfTheBizarre a much larger market]]. In well-thought-out settings where slavery is commonplace, many of the largest slave markets will be situated near the largest markets for other merchandise, on account of the simple merchant's rule: follow the money. For this reason, a slave market is usually a sign that the place it is located in is rich, or is very strategically useful or convenient to another place that is rich; a larger market usually signifies a richer host. The presence and size of the market will also be a sign that whoever runs it is powerful -- since slaves were historically [[MadeASlave taken in war]] -- and highly unequal -- since one of the other main ways to become a slave across history was to [[IndenturedServitude get deeply indebted to a rich neighbor]] -- and (in modern works) probably decadent and possibly evil.

In fact, in SwordAndSorcery fantasy stories and SwordAndSandal stories set in ancient history, the slave market may be treated as just part of the usual setting furniture, and if not exactly treated with approval, not a major moral issue either; slavery is just something (bad) that happens in such settings, so of course there are slave markets. In visual works, the slave market scene may serve as a rather sleazy excuse to slip in some {{Fanservice}}, an amazing proportion of the slaves being young, attractive, and under-dressed (for customer inspection, of course), and often female. (This is a habit that goes back at least to Victorian painters, who took all sorts of "classical" scenes as excuses to slip a lot of nudity past the period's active MoralGuardians.) In stories set any time in the last couple of hundred years, though, slavery is almost always treated as unambiguously evil, with the slave market being a big sign of the society's moral degeneracy -- although there may still be some fanservice. However, if set in the present day, it'll probably be an underground slave market managed by HumanTraffickers and depicted as nightmarishly grim. It also shows up in some sci-fi and DaysOfFuturePast fiction, often as an institution found on a PlanetOfHats which practices slavery, which are more in line with fantasy portrayals.

* Cairo, being absurdly rich in the Middle Ages, was also famous as a depot for trading slaves: particularly black African slaves going north and east and coming from...

* The last slave markets in Morocco were closed in 1920 on the orders of the French colonial authorities.

* The film version of ''Film/VoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' expands the scene at the Lone Islands slave market, so we get to see a bidding war between several scruffy looking old sailors for the teenage Lucy (we're never told ''why'', but [[SexSlave use your imagination]]).

* In the Series/BlakesSeven episode "Assassin", Avon is captured and paraded at one of these. [[BigBad Servalan]] is attending, [[FoeRomanceSubtext and starts bidding on him]].

* The Victorian-period liking for {{fanservice}}-ish slave market paintings, as mentioned above, can be illustrated in a few seconds with Google image search. The results may be NSFW (in an artistic Victorian way), because that was the point.

* In the ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'' comic ''Recap/AsterixAndTheLaurelWreath'', in one of their attempts to get into Caesar's palace, Asterix and Obelix attempt to sell themselves as slaves at the House of Typhus, a renowed salesman of high quality slaves. They end up wrecking his stand, and ruining his reputation (as well as crash the slave market) by selling themselves for the ridiculously low price of ten sestertii.

A SettingTrope, this is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a place where people meet to buy and sell slaves]]. It can be a stand-alone thing, or it can be part of [[BazaarOfTheBizarre a much larger market]]. In well-thought-out settings where slavery is commonplace, many of the largest slave markets will be situated near the largest markets for other merchandise, on account of the simple merchant's rule: follow the money. For this reason, a slave market is usually a sign that the place it is located in is rich, or is very strategically useful or convenient to another place that is rich; a larger market usually signifies a richer host. The presence and size of the market will also be a sign that whoever runs it is powerful -- since slaves were historically [[MadeASlave taken in war]] -- and highly unequal -- since one of the other main ways to become a slave across history was to [[WorkOffTheDebt get deeply indebted to a rich neighbor]] -- and (in modern works) probably decadent and possibly evil.

A SettingTrope, this is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a place where people meet to buy and sell slaves]]. It can be a stand-alone thing, or it can be part of [[BazaarOfTheBizarre a much larger market]]. In well-thought-out settings where slavery is commonplace, many of the largest slave markets will be situated near the largest markets for other merchandise, on account of the simple merchant's rule: follow the money. For this reason, a slave market is usually a sign that the place it is located is rich, or is very strategically useful or convenient to another place that is rich; a larger market usually signifies a richer host. The presence and size of the market will also be a sign that whoever runs it is powerful -- since slaves were historically [[MadeASlave taken in war]] -- and highly unequal -- since one of the other main ways to become a slave across history was to [[WorkOffTheDebt get deeply indebted to a rich neighbor]] -- and (in modern works) probably decadent and possibly evil.

* ''WesternAnimation/JosephKingOfDreams'' has a sequence where Joseph is sold to Potiphar [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBXg16U2-Lg that gets its own song.]] He's mercifully passed over for hard labor as he's too scrawny, instead becoming a household slave.