Morisco slave ransoms ran roughly double the open-market slave price.

Evidence

Aranda (1984, 172) notes that such “ransoms” were in general at well above the going rate for the purchase of slaves at the time. Whereas males under ten years of age might fetch 20.5 ducats on the open market, the ransoms paid to masters averaged 46 ducats; for males between 30 and 39 the respective prices were 46.2 and 84.7 ducats, respectively; for female slaves there were similar differentials. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1150

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why were ransoms pushed to double market value? Was it a deliberate premium to persuade owners to release, or a dynamic of desperation bidding?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1150