Anti-slavery laws and Abolitionist thought in Ethiopia during the 16th and 17th centuries. (Patreon)

The historiography of Abolitionism often begins with the writings of European abolitionists, and their influence on the anti-slavery laws passed by the imperial powers of the 19th century. This narrow framework obscures the complex processes in which anti-slavery laws and abolitionist thought evolved across the world, including in Africa, where many of the enslaved originated.

The state of Ethiopia provides some of the best documentary evidence for anti-slavery laws and abolitionist thought in pre-colonial Africa. During the 16th century, its king issued an edict that expanded pre-existing anti-slavery laws designed to protect his subjects after a devastating invasion had resulted in the capture and export of thousands of enslaved Ethiopians.

A century after the anti-slavery edict was issued, two Ethiopian philosophers expounded upon the issue of slavery. As part of their wider criticism of established knowledge, they argued for the equality of all people regardless of origin and were opposed to the use of violence to justify enslavement.

This article explores the evolution of anti-slavery laws and abolitionist thought in Ethiopia during the 16th and 17th centuries in order to highlight the African perspective against slavery.

 Ethiopia in the 16th century

Anti-slavery laws during the Ethiopian Middle Ages.

The history of the northern Horn of Africa during the Middle Ages was dominated by the emergence and expansion of the Solomonic state (1270-1974) whose monarchs claimed to be restoring the old Christian state of Aksum. The diverse populations of the various societies in the northern Horn of Africa also included slaves, who were often acquired through warfare and judicial processes. Some of them were retained locally, some were exported and some were eventually manumitted.

As early as the 14th century the formalization of Ethiopia's legal system created laws that protected the subjects of the Solomonic monarchs as well as regulating slavery and manumission. The juridical system of Ethiopia represented a complex blend of elements that included traditional law, Coptic Christian law, Islamic law, and post-classical Roman-Byzantine legal systems.

The combination of these laws was compiled in the written books of laws of Ethiopia. The first of these Ethiopian books of law was the Sinodos; a 22-chapter canonical work of Coptic origin translated into Ge'ez during the 14th century. The Sinodos were later expanded with 29 'secular' laws for kings, thus becoming the Fetha Nägäst (Law of Kings), which remained the official book of law in Ethiopia until the end of the Solomonids in 1974.    

(Legal Encounters on the Medieval Globe pg 75-81)

commentary of the Fetha Nagest, completed during the reign of Fasilides (r. 1632-1667)

Like most states and societies, Ethiopia recognized the theory of natural liberty, in which freedom is the true nature of all human beings created by God but some people are reduced to slavery as a result of war. The Fetha Nagast states that: "[The state of Liberty is in accord with the law of reason, for all men share liberty on the basis of natural law. But war and the strength of horses bring some to the service of others, because the law of war and of victory rendered the vanquished slaves of the victors."

(An Introduction to the Economic History of Ethiopia pg 372-373, A Social History of Ethiopia pg 64-66)

Religion determined who fell within the boundaries of those protected from enslavement and those who could legitimately be enslaved. Based on this, freeborn Christians were a priori of free status, while Non-­Christians captured in war could be enslaved, and could attimes be retained even after their conversion. The Fetha Nägäst also imposed capital punishment against those who stole children, be they free or slave. 

Not only was trade in Christian slaves banned, both new for newly converted pagans and free Christians, but the law also encouraged Christians to purchase and free any Christian slaves as "an excellent form of alms." Releasing a slave from bondage was deemed “a deed of perfection.” since it involved  “the granting to a man of the right to become master of himself, according to the original law of his natural liberty.”

(Legal Encounters on the Medieval Globe pg 86-87)

The above anti-slavery laws were enforced by the Ethiopian state thanks to its relative military strength compared to other states in the northern Horn of Africa such as the sultanate of Ifat and the 'pagan' kingdoms to its south, which were at various points reduced to vassalage by the Solomonid monarchs.

However, the balance of power was greatly altered from 1529 to 1543, when nearly all of Christian Ethiopia was occupied by a Muslim army of the Sultanate of Adal led by Ahmad Gran. The wars and occupation resulted in the looting and destruction of churches, the conversion of many to Islam, and the enslavement of thousands of Christian captives; including royals and commoners, many of whom were sold abroad to the Muslim states in Arabia.

(A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia pg 455-466, Legal Encounters on the Medieval Globe pg 100-102)

After the defeat of Ahmad Gran by the Ethiopian emperor  Gälawdéwos, and the revival of Ethiopian power in the northern Horn, the restored state faced the challenge of rebuilding its institutions. The most important of these institutions was the church, particularly the re-conversion of Ethiopians to Christianity, which would have included a restoration of their protections from enslavement by Muslim merchants --the only group that was permitted to engage in long-distance trade within Ethiopia.

(Ethiopia and the Red Sea pg 102-107, A Social History of Ethiopia pg 53, Legal Encounters on the Medieval Globe pg 102)

Ethiopia at the time of Galawdewos highlighting some of the provinces mentioned in his edict

The anti-slavery edict of King Galawdewos.

It was in this context that King Gälawdéwos issued an edict in 1548 regulating the institution of slavery in Christian Ethiopia, based on pre-existing laws in the Fetha Nägäst and new restrictions influenced by prevailing circumstances. The edict consists of four parts; the proem,  general provisions regulating the slave trade and prohibiting the traffic in Christians; the anathemas and the date on which the edict was issued; and finally the provisions concerning the regulation of the slave trade in Damot and Gamo provinces, specifically.

….

"Praise be, Blessed Trinity, to Your name and exalted be Your memory. He is my Helper and I trust in Him. I delight in His power and shelter in His grace. Praise and power be to Him. Glory and rule over all worlds be to Him. Forever and ever. Amen.

I, King Gälawdéwos, son of Wänag Sägäd, have ordered that from now onwards any merchant [traveling with slaves], whether he be Muslim or Christian, shall not proceed to the sea, to Adal, and to other market places visited by merchants, without coming to my gate [for inspection].

 Let him bring both female and male slaves before me. Let him write down the number of slaves [he is traveling with] and report them to the mäkwanent (nobility), mäsafent (princes), and seyuman (officials) of the district along the route they pass through. When any captive who is not in the list reported to the [mäkwannent, mäsafent, and seyuman] is discovered, let them take him into custody. If the captive turns out to be Christian and the one [who knowingly bought him] is an Arab, let them deprive him of all his merchandise and send him to me. Let them kill the seller who [knowingly] puts up for market and sale [to the Arab merchant] the Christian slave.

 If the seller who [knowingly] sold a Christian is a merchant, whether he be Muslim or a Christian Ethiopian compatriot, let them kill him. If an Arab [merchant] knowingly purchases a Christian, let them confiscate all his property. Any azaj (commander or chief), whether he be fätahit (judge), or mäkonnen, or seyum of the district, who [slacks on his obligation] and does not follow our commands, deserves to be killed without mercy and his house ransacked; and let him be damned by the mouth of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and by the mouth of all Church Fathers.

I, King Gälawdéwos, legislated this law and sanctioned this writing. Let it be the established law and regulation of the land of Ethiopia forever and ever. Anyone who violates my decree, whether they be future kings, or judges, is under perpetual anathema both in his life and after his death. Whosoever destroys this book, or takes it away from Ethiopia, may God delete his name from the Book of Life; may his lot be with Caiaphas and Annas, Judah of Iscariot and Simon the Magician; may the earth open her mouth, and swallows him up like Dathan and Abiram. My handwriting shall be my testimony. This was written down in the year of the martyrs 1264; on the 18th day of the blessed month of Yäkatit, 7 years and 7 months after God made me king [February 12, 1548].

“Glory to God in the highest heavens, and peace on the earth, [and] His good will to men”. Forever and ever. Amen.

If one buys a slave, whether be it from Damot, or Gamo, [first], let him write down the name of the seller; second, let him write down the number of slaves and the price of purchase and report it to the mäkwannent, mäsafent, and seyumanä hagär along the routes the [caravan] is passing through.

If, upon examination, the matter is found to be true, they shall let him [the merchant] go. When a slave bought from Damot and Gamo dies, and the owner subsequently buys a Christian slave as replacement, let them deprive such a person so offending and duly convict all his property; let them handcuff and bring him to me. When he [the slave merchant] writes down his merchandise, let him [use this formula “I hereby specify that] the slaves I purchased from Damot numbered this many; the slaves I purchased from Gamo numbered this many.” Let him classify them by regional origin in this way."

…..

The Edict of Gälawdéwos in situ at the Tädbabä Maryam church, Ethiopia.

The above edict was contained in the same document in which king Gälawdéwos appointed a local Muslim governor over the province of Ifat, which had returned to Ethiopia's vassalage after the collapse of the Adal sultanate. The edict's issuance was thus politically astute since it not only demonstrated the emperor's authority over a Muslim state that continuously posed the greatest threat to Ethiopia, but also restored the social hierarchy favorable to Christian Ethiopians over their Muslim peers regarding slavery.

The primary intentions of Gälawdéwos’s edict were twofold. First, the edict aimed at protecting freeborn Christians from enslavement and preventing the export of Christian slaves from the country at the pain of death. The second objective was to regulate and control the slave trade. Merchants had to make a report of their names and numbers of slaves to government officials before exporting them. Authorities seen as negligent and complacent towards merchants who enslaved and sold freeborn Christians to non-Christian masters were considered as culpable as the merchants who operated illegally. Both the merchant and local officials was to be put to death and their wealth confiscated.

Gälawdéwos’ edict indicates that new legal strategies were adopted by Ethiopian monarchs to address the perennial problem of an illegal slave trade. Gälawdéwos toughened the restrictions on slave dealers and went much further than the Fetha Nägäst by criminalizing not only the enslavement of freeborn Christians and the trade in Christian slaves to non-­Christians but also acts of negligence by government officials.

While the edict doesn't call for the complete abolition of the slave trade, it creates new restrictions on the trade that were informed by prevailing realities. It therefore presents us with an example of how abolitionist thought gradually evolved in Ethiopia, from a mere knowledge of natural law and protection of Christians from enslavement to the active involvement of the state in enforcing these laws with punishments for both non-Christians and Christians.

(Legal Encounters on the Medieval Globe pg 105-108)

Gälawdéwos anti-slavery edict was part of the broader cultural and intellectual processes in a newly reconstituted Christian-Ethiopian society recovering from the crisis of the Adal invasion.

The strict restrictions against the slavery of Christian Ethiopians would continue to be enforced by Galawdewos' successors, especially Susenyos (r. 1607–32), who executed a Muslim trader who had been found exporting enslaved Christians. Furthermore, many communities on Ethiopia's peripheries such as in Damot and Bizamo, requested to convert to Christianity, despite objections by some Christian elites who would have lost their dependents. The 'pagans' request was granted, thus giving them the protections enjoyed by the rest of Ethiopia's citizens against enslavement.

(A Social History of Ethiopia pg 66, Legal Encounters on the Medieval Globe pg 105)

Ethiopian Philosophers against slavery: abolitionist writing in 17th century Ethiopia. 

 The above outline of anti-slavery laws in 16th-17th century Ethiopia indicates that most subjects/citizens of the state, from royals to merchants to officials to 'pagans,' knew that the law protected freeborn Christians from enslavement and that the state was now actively involved to the best of its capacity.

However, perspectives against slavery by non-royals in Ethiopia were markedly more progressive than those of the rulers who had to balance the political and economic interests in maintaining that trade,  against their own moral and religious objections to violating people's natural rights of freedom. The 17th-century Ethiopian philosophers; Zara Yaqob and his student Wäldä Heywät expounded upon the issue of slavery in their philosophical treatise Hatäta Zärä Yaqob (The Treatise of Zera Yacob)'.

Zara Yacob was an Ethiopian scribe born in August 1600 near Aksum. He fled the persecutions of Emperor Susenyos when the latter converted to Catholicism, but later returned when the emperor abdicated in 1632. in the same year, he gained a patron named Lord Habtu who was the father to student Walda Heywat.

In 1668, Zara Yacob completed his Hatata Inquiry, a deeply religious yet rational philosophical treatise concerned with epistemology, metaphysics, and phenomenology that was very critical of established religious knowledge (both Christian and non-Christian) and asserts the equality of all people.

Sometime after 1693, his student, Walda Heywat wrote his own Hatata Inquiry, exploring the same themes as his teacher but in greater detail. He later wrote a coda to Zara Yacob's during the early 1700s, and copies of both works were distributed clandestinely as they were deemed 'heretical'.  By 1854, an Italian visitor to Ethiopia sent copies of both manuscripts to his patron, from where they were sent to the BnF library in Paris and later translated.

(The Hatata inquiries pg 1-16)

opening folio of the Hatata Zara Yaqob, 19th century copy, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Zara Yacob describes himself as such: "As for me, I lived with human beings, seeming like a Christian to them. But, in my heart, I did not believe—except in God the creator of everything and the protector of everything, as he had given me to know", adding that "I lived with people as if I was like them, and I dwelled with God in the way that he had given me to know." While Zara Yacob doesn't describe himself as an Ethiopian Christian in the way that was practiced by his contemporaries, and he is critical of many practices of his peers, his discussion on slavery is contained in a longer passage criticizing Islamic law.

(The Hatata inquiries pg 107)

The section against slavey reads;

"Muslims say that it is proper to sell and trade human beings like animals. But only through our intelligence do we realise that this Muslim law cannot come from the Creator of human beings, the one who created us equal, as brothers and sisters, meaning that we call the Creator ‘our father’ [as members of his family]. But Mohammed regarded weak human beings as the property of strong human beings and equated rational creation with irrational beasts. Can it be that this violence comes from God?"

(The Hatata inquiries pg 79)

It's important to consider that Zara Yacob's critique of slavery and Islam comes after a section criticizing his own peers (Ethiopian Christians) for several practices such as ascetic monks opposed to marriage, writing that: "when the Christians’ law says, ‘the ascetic monastic life is better than marriage’ it’s telling a lie and it’s not from God." He also criticizes the law of Moses (followed by the Ethiopian Jews and Christians) for considering women to be unclean during mensuration, writing that "therefore, this law of Moses cannot be from the Creator of women".

Furthermore, the argument that enslavement cannot be justified by violence by the strong against the weak challenges not just Islamic law (as it was understood by Zara Yacob) but also Ethiopian law of the Fetha Nägäst, which also justified slavery based on violence. Its therefore very likely that Zara Yacob intended his critique of slavery in Islam as a general critique of slavery itself.

Zara Yacob's student, Walda Heywat, went on further in expounding upon the equality and humanity of all people, not just Christians (ie: Ethiopians), but also Muslims, Jews, and Pagans.

 writing that:

"Don’t be impressed with the teaching of those inferior in wisdom, who say [things like], ‘I don’t know who to call “neighbour”, except our relatives, our neighbours, our friends, and our fellow believers’.

Don’t say what they say, since all human beings are our ‘neighbours’, whether they are good or evil; whether Christians, Muslims, Jews, or pagans. All of them are our equals and all of them are our siblings because we are all children of one Father, and we are all one creator’s creatures."

(The Hatata inquiries pg 131)

The above passage is fairly radical for an Ethiopian elite of the time, considering how much many Ethiopian Christian elites despised Muslims, Jews, and Pagans in their society. This is especially the case in the 17th century when non-Christians often lived in segregated communities, were heavily taxed, and were only allowed to engage in activities that were prohibited for Christians such as artisanal work, long-distance trade, and other forms of menial labor.

(A Social History of Ethiopia pg 207-247)

In his advice to rulers, Walda Heywat cautions them to treat everyone equally and not reduce them to slavery. He writes that:

"If you are put in charge of others, don’t treat them with a heavy hand, or mistreat them with your power. Instead, be fair to everyone, high or low, rich, or poor, and without being timid in others’ presence, but administering justice with righteousness and impartiality.

Don’t subjugate others with bitter servitude or enslavement. Instead, protect them as if they were your own children. Then they will love you instead of being afraid of you, and you will find peace among them and blessings from God"

(The Hatata inquiries pg 156)

Conclusion: the evolution of abolitionist thought in Ethiopia.

 The edict of Galawdewos and the philosophical writings of Zara Yacob and Walda Heywat shed some light onto abolitionist thought in pre-modern Ethiopia, and how internal African debates about the legitimacy and legality of slavery evolved over time, in response to internal realities as well as external influences. While the institution of slavery continued in Ethiopia, the massive influx of Christian Ethiopian slaves in external markets during the 16th century was never repeated.

It's evident that in Ethiopia, as in the rest of the world, anti-slavery laws and the idealistic thoughts of abolitionists were constrained by the capacity of the state to enforce them as well as societal biases towards non-citizens. For this reason, all forms of slavery wouldn't be officially abolished in Ethiopia until the years between 1884 and 1942 after the convergence of multiple imperatives. These imperatives included not just international pressure (since slavery was a powerful pretext for colonial conquest) but also internal precedent; from the slavery laws of the Fatha Nagast, to the edict of Galawdewos to the broader abolitionist thought of Zara Yacob and Walda Heywat.

References:

A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly

An Introduction to the Economic History of Ethiopia, from Early Times to 1800 by Richard Pankhurst

Legal Encounters on the Medieval Globe edited by Elizabeth Lambourn

A Social History of Ethiopia: The Northern and Central Highlands from Early Medieval Times to the Rise of Emperor Téwodros II by Richard Pankhurst

Ethiopia and the Red Sea: The Rise and Decline of the Solomonic Dynasty and Muslim European Rivalry in the Region by Mordechai Abir

The Hatata Inquiries: Two Texts of Seventeenth-Century African Philosophy from Ethiopia about Reason, the Creator, and Our Ethical Responsibilities, Translated by Ralph Lee

Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic edited by Derek R. Peterson

The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2 & 3

That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500 by Hannah Barker

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