Volume Three—Chapter Thirty Five.

Slavery and the Slave-Trade in Shoa.

The annals of slavery point clearly to war as the principal cause of the monstrous crime of selling our fellow-creatures like cattle in the market. One nation having taken from another a greater number of captives than could be exchanged on equal terms, it is easy to comprehend how the victors, finding the maintenance of their prisoners expensive and inconvenient, first compelled them to work for their daily bread. Emerged from the limited wants of savage life, man next saw productions of art, which he eagerly coveted; and lacking habits of industry by which to earn them for himself, he compelled all whom his superiority enabled him to bring under subjection to pass their lives in labouring for his advantage.

In Africa especially, where the human passions are unbridled, and man emulates the ferocity of the beast of prey, war proves a never-drying spring of misery and bondage, and slavery is the inevitable lot of all who are not slain on the battlefield, or massacred in the sacking of towns and villages. The weak and unsuccessful warrior, who sues for mercy beneath the uplifted spear of his opponent, purchases existence at the expense of liberty; and in time of famine the freeman often becomes a voluntary slave, in order to avoid the greater calamity of inevitable starvation. By the philosophic and reflecting mind death would doubtless be esteemed the lighter evil of the two, but the untutored savage, fainting with hunger, thinks with Esau of old, “Behold, I am at the point to die—what profit shall this birthright do to me?”

Crime, necessity, insolvency, the inhumanity of a harsh creditor, a spirit of retaliation in petty disputes, and the sordid love of gain, for which parents will even sell their own children, severally assist in feeding the demand for slaves—the law of every African state either tolerating or directly sanctioning the evil; and wherever the Mohammadan faith prevails, frequent predatory incursions, characterised by the most atrocious violence, are made into the territories of all neighbouring infidels, who are systematically hunted down and entrapped as a religious duty.

Slaves in Africa are thus in proportion to the freemen of about three to one; but although the number of individuals reduced to a state of bondage by the operation of the above causes, and the destruction created, both as regards life and property, is immense, the whole combined are but as a single grain of dust in the balance, when compared with the slavery, the destitution, and the desolation, that is daily entailed by the unceasing bloody struggles betwixt state and state. Towns and villages are then obliterated from the face of the earth, and thousands upon thousands of the population, of whatever age or sex, are hurried into hopeless captivity.

In a country reft into ten thousand petty governments, the majority of which are independent and jealous one of the other; where every freeman, inured to arms from the first hour that he is capable of bearing them, pants for an opportunity of displaying his valour in the field; where the cherished recollection of hereditary feuds; the love of plunder inherent in every savage breast, and the bigoted zeal of religious enthusiasts, all conspire to afford hourly pretexts for war—the sword of desolation is never suffered to rust within the scabbard. The fact of one nation being stronger than another is even sufficient; and whilst hostilities, originating frequently in the most frivolous provocations, are prosecuted with relentless fury, robbery on a great and national scale, forming one of the chief features of African character, is almost universally prevalent. Here it is perpetrated by no concealed or proscribed ruffian; neither is it limited to those poorer tribes who are exposed to the temptation of rich caravans skirting their borders in progress to distant lands. Each needy soldier seeks with his sword to redress the unequal distribution made by the hand of fortune. The most distinguished warrior chieftains consider it a glory to place themselves at the head of an expedition undertaken solely for purposes of plunder; and the crime of stealing human beings in order to sell them into foreign markets, which, with all its attendant cruelty, is so widely practised throughout the benighted continent, is one in which the greatest of her sovereigns do not hesitate to participate.

The following narrative by a native of the village of Súppa, in Enárea, detailing the history of his capture and subsequent vicissitudes, may be taken as a fair specimen of the usual circumstances attending the transfer of the kidnapped victim from one merciless dealer to another, in his progress to Abyssinia through the interior provinces which form the focus of slavery in the north-east.

“When twenty years of age, whilst tending my father’s flocks, an armed band of the Ooma Galla, with whom my tribe had long been in enmity, swept suddenly down, and took myself with six other youths prisoners, killing four more who resisted. Having been kept bound hand and foot during five days, I was sold to the Toomee Galla, one of the nearest tribes, for thirty ámoles (about six shillings and three-pence sterling). The bargain was concluded in the Toomee market-place, which is called Sundáffo, where, in consequence of the dearness of salt, two male slaves are commonly bought for one dollar; and after nightfall, the Mohammadan rover by whom I had been purchased, came and took me away.

“Having been kept bound in his house another week, I was taken two days’ journey with a large slave Caravan, and sold privately to the Nono Galla for a few ells of blue calico. My companions in captivity were assorted according to their age and size, and walked in double file, the stout and able-bodied only, whereof I was one, having their hands tied behind them. In Meegra, the market-place of the Nono, I was, after six weeks’ confinement, sold by public auction to the Gumbitchu Galla for forty pieces of salt (value eight shillings and fourpence). Thence I was taken to the market-place which is beyond Sequala, on the plain of the Háwash, and sold for seventy pieces of salt to the Soddo Galla, and immediately afterwards to Roqué, the great slave-mart in the Yerrur district, where I was sold for one hundred ámoles” being one pound sterling.

“From Roqué I was driven to Alio Amba, in Shoa, where a Mohammadan subject of Sáhela Selássie purchased me in the market of Abd el Russool for twelve dollars; but after three months, my master falling into disgrace, the whole of his property was confiscated, and I became the slave of the Negoos, which I still am, although permitted to reside with my family, and only called upon to plough, reap, and carry wood. Exclusive of halts, the journey from my native village occupied fifteen days. I was tolerably fed, and not maltreated. All the merchants through whose hands I passed were Mohammadans; and until within a few stages of Alio Amba, I was invariably bound at night, and thus found no opportunity to escape. Prior to my own enslavement, I had been extensively engaged as a kidnapper, and in this capacity had made party in three great slave hunts into the country of the Doko negroes beyond Cáffa; in the course of which, four thousand individuals of both sexes were secured.”

From Enárea and Guráguê, the two slave-marts principally frequented by the dealers in human flesh who trade through the Abyssinian states, the traffic is conducted to the sea-coast via Sennaar, Argóbba, Aussa, and Hurrur—importations into Shoa passing through the kingdom by two great highways from the interior. The first is by Ankóber to the market-place of Abd el Russool, where purchases are eagerly made by the caravan traders from Hurrur, Zeyla, and Tajúra; the other by Debra Libanos to the market of Antzóchia adjoining Asselléli, the frontier town on the north, whence they pass through Upper Abyssinia to Massowah and Rahe?ta, supplying also the Aussa caravans, which come to Dowwé, on the frontier of Worra Káloo.

In addition to a tax of one in every ten, Sáhela Selássie possesses the right of pre-emption of all slaves that pass through his dominions, his governors selecting and submitting for the royal approval those which appear best worthy of consideration, when a price placed by the holder on the head of each is modified by His Majesty at pleasure. A transit duty of four pieces of salt is further levied upon every individual, male or female, of whatever age, exposed for sale or barter; and the number annually exported by the roads above named being estimated at from fifteen to twenty thousand, the revenues derived from the traffic in his fellow-men by the Christian monarch may be averaged at eight hundred pounds.

His Majesty’s household slaves, male and female, exceed eight thousand. Of the latter, three hundred are concubines of the royal harem; and of the former, fifty are eunuchs. The residue of both sexes are employed in a variety of servile offices, and they each receive a portion of barley sufficient to compose two small loaves. Beyond this they must provide their own maintenance: many whose business it is to fetch fuel from the royal forests, being, however, suffered to dispose of whatever wood they can carry away in addition to the load imposed; whilst the whole, after the due performance of their allotted task, are permitted, according to their respective functions, to hire themselves to private individuals.

Slavery is hereditary, not only on the side of the mother, but also on that of the father; and if a free woman weds a slave, her progeny becomes the property of the owner of her husband. But the bondsmen of the king, it has been seen, form an exception to this rule, their offspring being free if born of a free woman—a privilege which may be traced to the circumstance of the royal slaves having a stated duty to perform, for which a certain daily allowance of food is granted; whereas the whole time and labour of the slave of the commoner are at the exclusive disposal of the master, who supports the wife also. Marriage between free persons and the slaves of His Majesty are thus by no means unfrequent; the bondsman, after the performance of his allotted task, enjoying liberty to return daily to his family, and to appropriate the residue of his time.

A child born in slavery receives subsistence, in a limited proportion, from the moment of coming into the world, the liabilities of bondage being incurred from the cradle. As a check on those who reside with a free parent in various parts of the kingdom, an annual census of the whole is taken by the royal scribes, when those who are ascertained to have acquired a competent age are summoned to their task at one of the royal establishments; and it too often happens that when incapacitated by infirmity from further labour, the daily dole is discontinued through the parsimony of the servants of the crown.

Caravans, consisting of from one hundred to three thousand individuals of all ages, pass through Shoa during the greater portion of the year. Three-fourths are young boys and girls, many of them quite children, whose tender age precludes a sense of their condition. Even adults are unfettered, and the majority are in good spirits, all being well fed and taken care of, although many of both sexes arrive in a state of perfect nudity. Surrounded by the rovers on horseback, they are driven promiscuously along the road, males and females being separated at the termination of each march, and made to sit in detached groups comprising from ten to fifteen souls, who are deterred from wandering by the exhibition of the whip; but this is rarely used, except for the chastisement of the unruly, who may seek to effect their escape.

In the eyes of every African, the value of a slave increases in the ratio of his distance from the land of his nativity, the chance of his absconding being reduced in the same proportion. The usual prices in the Shoan market are from ten to twenty German crowns; but females possessing superior personal attractions often fetch from fifty to eighty, which outlay is returned three-fold in Arabia. The profits accruing from the trade are thus obviously large; and notwithstanding the murders which are annually perpetrated by freebooters on the road to the sea-coast, the mortality can scarcely be said to exceed that under the ordinary circumstances of African life.

The hebdomadal sale of human flesh which takes place in the public market at Abd el Russool, the disgusting parade of victims, and the sensuality of the savage purchasers, are sufficient to draw forth every sentiment of indignation, and to elicit every feeling of sympathy; but it must be confessed that slavery in this portion of Africa, excepting as regards the powers pertaining to it, is in fact little more than servitude. The newly-captured become soon reconciled to their lot and condition, their previous domestic life having too often been one of actual bondage, although not nominally so. And even in the sultry plains of the Ada?el, few individuals of the long droves that are daily to be seen on their weary march to the coast with Danákil caravans, afford indications of being tortured with regret at the loss of their freedom, and of their native land, or with recollections of the verdant plains whence avarice and cruelty have torn them.

From the governor to the humblest peasant, every house in Shoa possesses slaves of both sexes, in proportion to the wealth of the proprietor; and in so far as an opinion may be formed upon appearances, their condition, with occasional, but rare exceptions, is one of comfort and ease. Mild in its character, their bondage is tinctured with none of the horrors of West Indian slavery. The servitude imposed is calculated to create neither suffering nor exhaustion. There is no merciless taskmaster to goad the victim to excessive exertion—no “white man’s scorn” to be endured; and, although severed from home, from country, and from all the scenes with which his childhood had been familiar, his lot is not unfrequently improved. Naturalised in the house of his master, he is invariably treated with lenity—usually with indulgence—often with favour; and under a despotic sovereign, to whom servile instruments are uniformly the most agreeable, the caprices of fortune may prefer the exile to posts of confidence and emolument, and may even exalt him to the highest dignities.