Somali slave trade
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The Somali slave trade existed as a part of the
Oromo subjects were favoured due to their perceived handsome features and higher intellectual qualities compared to other slaves.[3] Additionally, they were not viewed as very different from their Somali owners, thus being higher in price compared to other East Africans.[4]
History
Habesha Slave Trade
Habesha slaves were sold by Somalis as early the 13th century. Archival records compiled at the end of
According to
in 1503 wrote that the port was a place of immense traffic, especially for slaves. He declares:“Here are sold a very great number of slaves, which are the people of Prester John (Ethiopia) whom the Moors take in battle, and from this place they are carried into Persia, Arabia Felix, and to Mecca, Cairo and into India.”
Zeila seems to have been the southernmost port frequented by Arab merchants, whose chief center for these regions, however, was Aden, where the commercial, and also the climatic conditions were more favorable. Through Zeila, and to a lesser degree Berbera, passed the main stream of slaves from the Ethiopian hinterland.[8]
The conquests of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi resulted in large numbers of Habesha peoples enslaved. He is said to have captured "hordes of Christians" which resulted in every soldier of his army having no less than two hundred slaves each, and according to a local chronicle every man in Harar had at least three Habesha slaves. Many of the Christian nobility were sold into slavery and their wives turned into concubines for the Muslims.[9][10]
According to
Origin of The Bantu Slave Trade
2500 years ago, speakers of the original proto-Bantu language group began a millennia-long series of migrations eastward from their original homeland in the general Cameroon area of Central Africa.[12] This Bantu expansion first introduced Bantu peoples to southern and southeastern Africa.[13][14]
The Bantus inhabiting Somalia are descended from these groups that had settled in Southeast Africa after the initial expansion from Cameroon, and whose members were later captured and sold into the East African slave trade.[13]
Bantus are ethnically, physically, and culturally distinct from Somalis and Ethiopians and they have remained marginalized ever since their arrival to the Horn of Africa.[15][16]
All in all, the number of Bantu inhabitants in Somalia before the civil war is thought to have been about 80,000 (1970 estimate), with most concentrated between the Juba and Shabelle rivers in the south.[17] Recent estimates, however, place the figure as high as 900,000 people.[18]
East African slave trade
The
From 1800 to 1890, between 25,000 and 50,000 Bantu slaves are thought to have been sold from the slave markets of
19th to 20th centuries
Bantu adult and children slaves (referred to as jareer by their Somali handlers)[21] were purchased in the slave markets explicitly to do undesirable work on plantations with oversight.[21] They were made to work in plantations exclusively owned by the Italian government along the southern Shebelle and Jubba rivers, harvesting lucrative cash crops such as grain and cotton.[22] Bantu slaves toiled under the control of the Italian government.[21]
The Bantus were conscripted to forced labor on Italian-owned plantations since the Somalis themselves were averse to what they deemed menial labor,[23] and because the Italians viewed the Somalis as racially superior to the Bantu.[24]
While upholding the perception of Somalis as distinct from and superior to the European construct of "black Africans", both British and Italian colonial administrators placed the Jubba valley population in the latter category. Colonial discourse described the Jubba valley as occupied by a distinct group of inferior races, collectively identified as the WaGosha by the British and the WaGoscia by the Italians. Colonial authorities administratively distinguished the Gosha as an inferior social category, delineating a separate Gosha political district called Goshaland, and proposing a "native reserve" for the Gosha.[24]
— Catherine Lowe Bestman, Unraveling Somalia: Race, Class and the Legacy of Slavery
The Italian colonial administration abolished slavery in Somalia at the turn of the 20th century. However, some Somali clans notably the Biimal clan opposed this idea. The Bimaals fought the Italians to keep their slaves. Although the Italians freed some Bantus, some Bantu groups remained enslaved well into the 1930s and continued to be despised and discriminated against by large parts of Somali society.[25]
Nilotic slaves
In the late 19th century, groups from the coastal regions of
Other slaves
In addition to Bantu plantation slaves, Somalis sometimes enslaved peoples of Oromo pastoral backgrounds that were captured during wars and raids on settlements.[27][4] However, there were marked differences in terms of the perception, capture, treatment and duties of the Oromo slaves in comparison to Bantu slaves.[4]
On an individual basis, Oromo subjects were not viewed as racially jareer by their Somali captors.[4] The Oromo captives also mostly consisted of young children and women, both of whom were taken into the families of their abductors; men were usually killed during the raids. Oromo boys and girls were adopted by their Somali patrons as their own children. Prized for their beauty and viewed as legitimate sexual partners, many Oromo women became either wives or concubines of their Somali captors, while others became domestic servants.[27][28] In some cases, entire Oromo clans were assimilated on a client basis into the Somali clan system.[27]
Neither captured Oromo children nor women were ever required to do plantation work, and they typically worked side-by-side with the Somali pastoralists. After an Oromo concubine gave birth to her Somali patron's child, she and the child were emancipated and the Oromo concubine acquired equal status to her abductor's Somali wife. According to the
Freedom for Oromo slaves was obtained through manumission and was typically accompanied by presents such as a spouse and livestock.[21] During abolition, former Oromo slaves, who generally maintained intimate relations with the Somali pastoralists, were also spared the harsh treatment reserved for the Bantu and Nilotic plantation slaves.[21][28]
See also
- Comoros slave trade
- Zanzibar slave trade
- Red Sea slave trade
- Indian ocean slave trade
References
- ^ a b Gwyn Campbell, The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, 1 edition, (Routledge: 2003), p.ix
- ^ Yusuf, Al Malik Muzzafar (1295). نور المعارف [Light of Knowledge] (in Arabic). pp. 326–327.
- ^ Krapf, Johann (1857). Pauline Fatme, First Fruits of the Gallas to Christ Jesus. Germany: The British Library. p. 9.
- ^ a b c d Catherine Lowe Besteman, Unraveling Somalia: Race, Class, and the Legacy of Slavery, (University of Pennsylvania Press: 1999), p. 116.
- ^ Yusuf, Al Malik Muzzafar (1295). نور المعارف [Light of Knowledge] (in Arabic). pp. 326–327.
- ^ Al-Makrizi.), Ahmad (Ibn Ali (1790). Historia regum Islamiticorum in Abyssinia. Sam. et Joh. Luchtmans. pp. 33–34.
- ISBN 9783515032049.
- ^ Tegegne, Habtamu M. "The Edict of King Gälawdéwos Against the Illegal Slave Trade in Christians: Ethiopia, 1548". Retrieved 12 June 2023.
- ^ Tegegne, Habtamu M. "The Edict of King Gälawdéwos Against the Illegal Slave Trade in Christians: Ethiopia, 1548". Retrieved 12 June 2023.
- ISBN 9783515032049.
- ISBN 9783515032049.
- ^ Philip J. Adler, Randall L. Pouwels, World Civilizations: To 1700 Volume 1 of World Civilizations, (Cengage Learning: 2007), p.169.
- ^ a b United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "Refugees Vol. 3, No. 128, 2002 UNHCR Publication Refugees about the Somali Bantu" (PDF). Unhcr.org. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- ^ Toyin Falola, Aribidesi Adisa Usman, Movements, borders, and identities in Africa, (University Rochester Press: 2009), p.4.
- ^ "The Somali Bantu: Their History and Culture – People". Cal.org. Retrieved 21 February 2013.[permanent dead link]
- ^ L. Randol Barker et al., Principles of Ambulatory Medicine, 7 edition, (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins: 2006), p.633
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, v.20, (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.: 1970), p.897
- ^ "Tanzania accepts Somali Bantus". BBC News. 25 June 2003. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- ^ a b Refugee Reports, November 2002, Volume 23, Number 8
- ^ "The Somali Bantu: Their History and Culture" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.p.8
- ^ a b c d e Catherine Lowe Besteman, Unraveling Somalia: Race, Class, and the Legacy of Slavery, (University of Pennsylvania Press: 1999), pp. 83-84
- ^ Henry Louis Gates, Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, (Oxford University Press: 1999), p.1746
- ^ Laitin, p.64.
- ^ a b Catherine Lowe Besteman, Unraveling Somalia: Race, Class, and the Legacy of Slavery, (University of Pennsylvania Press: 1999), p. 120
- ISBN 978-0-226-46791-7. Retrieved 2 July 2012.
- ^ Meinhof, Carl (1979). Afrika und Übersee: Sprachen, Kulturen, Volumes 62-63. D. Reimer. p. 272.
- ^ a b c Bridget Anderson, World Directory of Minorities, (Minority Rights Group International: 1997), p. 456.
- ^ a b c Catherine Lowe Besteman, Unraveling Somalia: Race, Class, and the Legacy of Slavery, (University of Pennsylvania Press: 1999), p. 82.