Summary

Slavery and the slave trade were persistent features of the cultural, social, and economic fabric of the Ethiopian-Eritrean region, which is historically constituted by various polities and societies across the Christian, Semitic-speaking highlands and the Rift Valley with its surrounding lowland regions, bordered by the Nile Valley on the west and the Red Sea coast to the east. The connectedness of this vast region through long-distance trade routes reaching the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean world is attested in sources since antiquity. There were multiple ways into enslavement: wars, raids, debt, birth, or trade, which involved various actors, be they shifta (bandits), soldiers, traders, or kings. Slave markets dotted the region along the general trade routes, and slaves were distributed into various social categories and labor occupations. While the expansion of the Ethiopian empire turned an increasing number of peasants into servants of the feudal class, the 19th century saw both a growth in the volume of slaves traded in the region and a growth in sources related to slavery thanks to increasing international attention. Despite a pronounced commitment to abolition by Ethiopian rulers since the late 19th century, abolition happened late and slowly. Legacies of slavery play a role in the continuing exclusion and marginalization of persons of slave descent in the 21st century.