Bulgaria Has Never Had Slaves

Bulgaria has never had systematic slavery of the kind practised in other parts of the world. Although Bulgarians lived under Turkish rule in the Ottoman Empire, slavery as an institution in which people were owned as property by others was not widespread in the Bulgarian lands.

Instead of slavery, Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire were often subject to tax and labour obligations, with peasants forced to pay taxes and work for the Turkish administration or Turkish feudal lords. Nevertheless, some forms of dependency and torture associated with this regime could resemble certain aspects of slavery. Even so, slavery as an institution did not exist in the Bulgarian lands.