This study has considered the first of the three eras of evolution, at the international level, of the regime of what is today known as human trafficking. The development, in the pre-League of Nations era, of the white slave traffic regime during the first decade of the 20th Century transpired through the 1902 negotiations which drafted both the 1904 International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic and the 1910 International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic.Those negotiations highlighted a bit of a lost history which is of relevance to contemporary considerations of human trafficking: that it was self-evident then that States should punish trafficking both internationally and domestically. That despite the two camps – those States that advocated for the international criminalisation of the prostitution of others, and those that advocated the suppression of the exploitation of the prostitution of others – the outcome was an agreement on the minimum which States were to suppress: the exploitation of the prostitution of those over the age of majority; and for those under the age, where consent was irrelevant, all the prostitution of minors. And finally, that the terms ‘abuse of authority’, ‘fraud’, ‘threats’ or ‘violence’ first conceived in 1902, but found within the UN and European anti-trafficking conventions are, in fact, “means of compulsion”. Means of compulsion which constituted the crime of white slave traffic for those over the age of majority, but considered aggravating circumstances for those under the age, where consent was irrelevant. Focused as it was on the issue of prostitution, the insights garnered here provide more depth of understanding of the sexual exploitation element of human trafficking. In so doing, it chips away at the historical considerations which have thus far been given to the study of human trafficking within international law and thus provide a bit more grounding, in understanding of the very sources and evolution of what is today known as human trafficking.