Boris Johnson: My grandmother was sold as a slave in the Grand Bazaar

Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his great-great-grandmother, Hanife Feride, was brought from the Caucasus to Istanbul in the 19th century and sold at the Grand Bazaar slave market, concluding that “we Johnsons are also descended from slaves.” The disclosure follows Johnson’s research into his family history and marks a notable public acknowledgment of slave ancestry by a senior British political figure. The story is personal rather than market-moving, but it adds to the wider reassessment of slavery’s legacy among British public figures.