Evaluate the reasons for the decline of slavery in the Ottoman Empire.

The question requires that candidates make an appraisal by weighing up the strengths and limitations of the different reasons for the decline of slavery in the Ottoman Empire. They may focus on the constriction of the Ottoman state during the latter part of the period, particularly in the Balkans and the Black Sea region. French colonization in Algeria, and Egyptian independence, similarly eroded those territories that the Ottomans had used within their empire for the supply of slaves. Candidates may look at how their use of slave markets in East Africa was curtailed following British expansion in that region and the closing of the Zanzibar market in 1873. They may point out that the changing moral climate over the course of the nineteenth century was a major factor in the decline of slavery more generally. Candidates may reach a judgment about the relative significance of various reasons they have considered.