Slavery in Ethiopia

Common card · No. 473815

Slavery in Ethiopia existed for centuries, going as far back as 1495 BC and ending in 1942. There are also sources indicating the export of slaves from the Aksumite Empire (100–940 AD). The practice formed an integral part of Ethiopian society. Slaves were traditionally drawn from the Nilotic groups locally known as Shanqella. War captives were another source of slaves, though the perception, treatment and duties of these prisoners was markedly different. Religious law banned Christian slave masters from taking Christians as slaves, however many Muslim Ethiopian slave traders took part in the Arab slave trade. In what is now Ethiopia, the Abyssinian Church justified slavery with its version of the Curse of Ham, a belief possibly adopted from medieval Jewish and Muslim scholars which would later find its way to the western world. The abolition of slavery became a high priority for the Haile Selassie regime which began in 1930. International pressures forced action, and it was required for...

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