Expert: Mark Smith - 7/16/2007

Question
QUESTION: Hi Mark, Sorry to single you out for this which may not be your sort of
question at all!
My 1st cousin 4xR bought a girl in the slave market in Alexandria ca 1828; do
you have any idea what he might have paid and in what currency? (He later
married her).
Thanks,
Jamie.

ANSWER: Hello Jamie. This is a tricky one. I've been unable to find out how much a young female slave would fetch at that date. But I do know that young females usually fetched the highest prices among slaves.
Egypt was a province of the Ottoman Empire in 1828 so the currency would have been the Turkish Kurus, but how that compared to British prices I don't know.
Mark

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Dear Mark, You're brilliantly helpful! Now, I've managed to establish that the
price
for a white slave at that time in Alexandria was about £30 (or $150) (and £16,
$80); how many Kurus might that have been? Any clue?
Thanks.

Answer
Hello Jamie. Sorry but I've been unable to find any information on currency rates for that period.
It's quite possible your ancestor paid for the girl in the slave market with British gold or silver coins. Any currency made of a precious metal would have been highly valued in Egypt, more so than the Turkish Kurus.
Mark