Corsair slavery in the 16th and 17th centuries does not fit into the modern model of the slave trade. White European Christians were enslaved in the hundreds of thousands by North African Muslim pirates. A controversial historical topic in today’s current events, the truth is more complicated than race. Religious and economic warfare fueled a massive enterprise in which entire villages and ships vanished without a trace. Sold into slavery on the Barbary Coast, the people of the Mediterranean world lived in fear of what might appear on the horizon – a fear of enslavement that still exists around the world today.