Volume Three—Chapter Thirty Six.

Introduction of Slavery into Abyssinia.

Although the history of North-eastern Africa is very imperfectly recorded, it is certain that Carthage, Egypt, and Ethiopia, early acquired and long maintained a prevailing influence therein. The Carthaginians possessed themselves of nearly the whole of the northern portion, whilst the Egyptians and Ethiopians occupied the east to the very centre. The extension of these great empires tended considerably to limit the trade in human flesh, and the world being in feud in every quarter, needed not to be supplied with slaves from Africa.

But this aspect of affairs was materially altered so soon as these three empires, losing their power, became subdivided into sundry governments, the diffusion of Christianity and civilisation in Europe and Asia meanwhile restricting the slave-trade to the African continent. Although not generally representing the character which their name implies, the Christians of the Occident and Orient had at least given up the system amongst themselves; and by the former especially it was very little practised until after the discovery of America, when it was revived and encouraged by the Spaniards; and the Negro being considered better fitted for hard labour than the aborigines of the New World, Africa began to be regarded as the slave-mart for the whole universe. About the same period Ethiopia was first invaded by numberless hordes of Pagan Galla, migrating from the south; and not long afterwards Graan, the fanatic Mohammadan enemy, commenced the overthrow of this then powerful empire, which was speedily dismembered, and has never since been able to regain its former limits.

The heathen intruders soon relaxing in their united efforts against the Christians, those Galla tribes which had settled on Abyssinian ground began to contest among themselves for the supremacy over the newly-acquired territory, and to enslave each other. The Mohammadans, who had meanwhile gained a footing in the disturbed country, being slave-dealers by profession, greedily availed themselves of the opportunity afforded by these intestine divisions to trade in Pagan prisoners, females especially, who possess the recommendation of superior personal attractions to the generality of “Afric’s dark daughters”—and thus the traffic spread rapidly around Abyssinia. Partly from fear of then enemies, and partly from being less interested in slavery than the Moslems, the Christians no longer ventured beyond the frontiers of the country they retained, and the avenues to the sea-coast, as well as those through the Galla tribes in the interior, thus fell together with the whole commerce into the hands of the bigoted disciples of the Prophet. They devoted their lives to the purchase and sale of human flesh, a trade with which they connected the propagation of their faith, and their market was ever supplied by the out-pouring of innumerable prisoners of war from the distant nations of the interior.

The origin of the slave-trade in these quarters may thus be referred to the commencement of hostilities therein, and to the presence of Mohammadans, by whom it was fostered and encouraged. Grain and cattle excepted, the wild and greedy Galla possessed not a single commodity to barter for the alluring foreign wares exhibited by the rover, but his captured foe presented the ready means of supplying whatsoever he coveted. The empire of Abyssinia being dismembered and enfeebled by the tide of invasion, its rulers, far from seeking to crush the hostilities that prevailed among the Gentiles, naturally rejoiced to see intestine feuds raging throughout a nation, which, if united, could have swept away the small remnant of Ethiopic power, once so predominant.

The Christians, moreover, had become so corrupted by evil example, that, in lieu of opposing a barrier to the advance of slavery, they shortly adopted and encouraged the debasing traffic. Those provinces especially which were separated from the principal seat of government not only afforded a market to numbers of Pagan prisoners, but extended to the dealer in slaves a safe road by which thousands were annually exported to Arabia; and Shoa, Efát, Guráguê, and Cambát, the southernmost provinces of Abyssinia, having more especially suffered at the hands of the Galla hordes, it is not difficult to understand how, in a confused political and ecclesiastical state of things, the detestation entertained towards their heathen persecutors prompted the population to purchase as drudges those of their enemies who had been captured in war.

When the rulers of Shoa began to extend their dominions, and to subdue the nearer tribes of Galla invaders, Christianity was propagated by the sword; but the Mohammadan traders, far from being checked or arrested in their dealings, were only induced to extend their traffic to more remote regions of north-eastern Africa. Instead of purchasing slaves at Ankóber, as had been their wont when that capital was still in Pagan hands, they were compelled, after its recapture, to seek their victims in Guráguê, and beyond. Those provinces of Abyssinia wherein the seat of government was established after the demolition of the Ethiopic empire, preserved more or less of their ancient customs, which sanctioned the enslavement of a captured enemy for the term of seven years, according to the Mosaic law; and the practice is to the present day retained in Gojam and Tigré—the inhabitants of these states neither buying nor selling slaves, but consigning to a few years of bondage all prisoners from the wild tribes of Shankela taken in war.

The enslavement of this heathen people, who are often barbarously hunted down for sport, is defended upon the grounds that so fierce, swarthy, and bestial a race, existing in the rudest possible form of savage state, must be the accursed of mankind, and entirely beyond the pale of natural rights. But the Christians of Western and Northern Abyssinia condemn this opinion of their brethren in the south and east; and Tekla Georgis, the late emperor of Gondar, having catechised a number of Shoan ecclesiastics as to the reason of their countenancing slavery and slave polygamy, reprobated both proceedings in the severest terms.

The separation of Shoa from the imperial sway of Northern Abyssinia, by the Galla invasion, was, as may be supposed, far from improving the morals of the people. The first rulers of Shoa, aspiring to ascendency over all the minor independent principalities, were fain to tolerate a variety of abuses which had crept into the Abyssinian church during the reign of anarchy, confusion, and barbarism; and, however well they might have felt inwardly disposed to work the reformation of their subjects, they durst not, in the infancy of their power, attempt the suppression of a custom to which the entire population of the subjugated districts were so strongly wedded. Moreover, they had begun to follow the example of the Gondar dynasty in respect to the hospitable entertainment by the crown of all foreigners and strangers; to which end a large establishment being indispensable for the preparation of the daily maintenance styled “dirgo,” they considered that the manual labour could better be performed by slaves selected from among the thousands that annually passed through their dominions than by their own free subjects.

The parsimony of their national character also doubtless favoured this introduction of slavery as a domestic institution. The sovereign was above all things desirous of acquiring a reputation for munificence without actually impairing the state revenues; and he felt anxious at the same time to pave the road to popularity by relieving his subjects of that drudgery which would have led to an aversion towards visitors, highly inimical to the royal interests. All despotic rulers are prone to greater confidence in the slave than in the freeman; and Abyssinian sophistry probably led the first kings of Shoa to argue, that hospitality extended towards strangers and pilgrims in the land would vindicate in the sight of Heaven the infliction of bitter bondage upon those who at that period, even more than at the present day, were execrated and abhorred.

The unceasing wars, wherein the feudal subjects of Shoa were personally engaged, being unfavourable for agricultural pursuits, they were not slow in imitating the example set by their monarch, as well in household slavery as in slave polygamy. Both king and people believed that the wretch exported from Africa was destined to Christian countries beyond the seas, where the truths of the Gospel would be imparted to him; and hence the slaveholder in Shoa, although prohibited from dealing in the flesh and blood of his fellow-creatures as a trade, was permitted to resell Mohammadan or Pagan purchases, who refused to embrace the religion of Ethiopia.

Slavery amongst the Galla tribes is cradled and nursed in the unceasing intestine feuds of that savage and disorganised people; but the circumstances attending its existence in Guráguê, although resting upon the same basis, are somewhat different in character. Since the period that the heathen inroads first cut off that Christian country from the ancient Ethiopic empire, and foes begirt it on all sides like wild beasts prowling for their prey, it has been thrown into a position of peculiar misfortune, and would gladly seek repose by placing itself again under the protection of its legitimate sovereign. For this boon it has often applied to Sáhela Selássie; but from motives of prudence he has not chosen to extend either his visits or his authority beyond the frontier village of Aiméllele.

Occupying about one and a half degree of longitude, by one degree of latitude, and swarming with population, Guráguê is at this moment in a state similar to Palestine of old, whereof the Scripture saith, “There was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” In the absence of a supreme head, each village or community elects its own temporary governor, who is perpetually removed by the cabals and caprice of the people. Whilst the Galla make constant predatory inroads from without, anarchy reigns within. A multitude of private feuds animate the turbulent population; and there being neither king nor laws, it is not surprising that every man should stretch forth his hand to kidnap his neighbour. Among the southern portions especially, in the domicile or in the open street, the stronger seizes upon the weaker as his bondsman, and sells him to the greedy Mohammadan dealers, who hover round like a host of hungry vultures, and are ever at hand with their glittering gewgaws; the innate love of which induces brother to sell sister, and the parent to carry her own offspring to the market.

Annually pouring out many thousands of her sons and daughters in every direction, this wretched Christian province, a prey to lawless violence, and the theatre of every monstrous and detestable crime, cries aloud for the intervention of the philanthropist. Guráguê is the very hotbed of slavery in Eastern Africa, north of the equator; and it claims the earnest attention of all who are interested in the suppression of the evil. None of the surrounding countries would seem to be unvitiated by the baneful influence of the slave-trade; and all are sunk in the lowest and most grovelling superstition. Susa, Korchássie, Wollámo, Cambát, with every other isolated principality once appended to the ancient empire, although still professing the mild tenets of the Christian faith, take an active part in the capture and sale of their fellow-savages. Villages are fired, and the inhabitants seized as they fly in terror from the flames that envelope their wigwams; and the aged and the infirm are butchered, because unfit for drudgery. The new-born babe is torn from its parent in the hour of its birth to be ruthlessly immolated at the shrine of the idol; and the shores of Lake Umo are white with the bleaching bones of hapless female victims, who have been selected from the drove for their superior charms, and have been launched into its depths by the superstitious Moslem slave-driver, to propitiate the genius of the water!