Extractions on the Roma..

The exact origins of slavery in the Danubian Principalities are not known. Historian Nicolae Iorga associated the Roma people's arrival with the 1241 Mongol invasion of Europe and considered their slavery as a vestige of that era, the Romanians taking the Roma from the Mongols as slaves and preserving their status. Other historians consider that they were enslaved while captured during the battles with the Tatars. The practice of enslaving prisoners may also have been taken from the Mongols. The ethnic identity of the "Tatar slaves" is unknown, they could have been captured Tatars of the Golden Horde, Cumans, or the slaves of Tatars and Cumans.

Slavery (Romanian: robie) existed on the territory of present-day Romania from before the founding of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in 13th–14th century, until it was abolished in stages during the 1840s and 1850s. Most of the slaves were of Roma (Gypsy) ethnicity. Particularly in Moldavia there were also slaves of Tatar ethnicity, probably prisoners captured from the wars with the Nogai and Crimean Tatars. The abolition of slavery was carried out following a campaign by young revolutionaries who embraced the liberal ideas of the Enlightenment. Notable among them was Mihail Kogălniceanu, who drafted the legislation related to the abolition of slavery in Moldavia. The enslavement of the Roma (often referred to as Gypsies) was still legal at the beginning of the 19th century. Abolitionism was associated with the progressive pro-European and anti-Ottoman movement, which gradually gained power in the two principalities. Between 1843 and 1855, all of the 250,000 enslaved Roma slaves were liberated. Many migrated to Western Europe and North America

Traditionally, Roma slaves were divided into three categories. The smallest was owned by the hospodars, and went by the Romanian-language name of ţigani domneşti ("Gypsies belonging to the lord"). The two other categories comprised ţigani mănăstireşti ("Gypsies belonging to the monasteries"), who were the property of Romanian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox monasteries, and ţigani boiereşti ("Gypsies belonging to the boyars"), who were enslaved by the category of landowners.


The impact of slavery on Romanian society became a theme of historiographic interest in the decades after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. In 2007, Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu approved the creation of Comisia pentru Studierea Robiei Romilor ("Commission for the Study of Roma Slavery"), which will present its findings in a report and will make recommendations for the Romanian education system and on promoting the history and culture of the Roma. The commission, presided upon by Neagu Djuvara, will also recommend the creation of a museum of the Roma, a research center, a Roma slavery commemoration day and the building of a memorial dedicated to Roma slavery.