From the 1440s into the 18th century, Europeans from Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, and England were sold into slavery by North Africans. It has been suggested that "white slavery had been minimised or ignored because academics preferred to treat Europeans as evil colonialists rather than as victims." In 1575, the Tatars captured over 35,000 Ukrainians; a 1676 raid took almost 40,000. About 60,000 Ukrainians were captured in 1688; some were ransomed, but most were sold into slavery. Some of the Roma people were enslaved over five centuries in Romania until abolition in 1864 (see Slavery in Romania).