Gold, Slaves, and Trading Routes in Southern Blue Nile (Abbay) Societies, Ethiopia, 13th–16th Centuries

Abstract

Abstract In the thirteenth century, the territories of Damot, Ǝnnarya, Ǝndägäbṭän, and Wäräb, located south of the Blue Nile, west of Awash, and northeast of the Gibe watershed, belonged to the realm of Damot. At that time, the motälämi dynasty ruled the kingdom and sought to assert authority over the Muslim states of eastern Ethiopia, šäwa, and Ifat. Following the accession of the Solomonic dynasty and its territorial conquests in the fourteenth century, the Kingdom of Damot gradually disappeared. It gave way to two different entities: the eastern part is known as medieval Damot—protectorate of the Christian kingdom—whereas the western part became the southern region of the Christian province of šäwa. South of this geopolitical entity were the kingdoms of Gamo and Janjero, which were famous for trading gold and slaves, particularly eunuchs, throughout the medieval period. Inhabited by agro-pastoralists settled in different areas of southern Blue Nile, Damot, Gamo, and Janjero were at the crossroads of an important trade in luxury goods. Slaves and gold originated from there and were then integrated into a long-distance commercial network. After passing through the Muslim states of eastern Ethiopia, the goods arrived in the ports of the Red Sea (Massawa and Zeyla) before reaching the Arabian Peninsula and Asia. This article analyzes the economic history of the region, draws the contours of the production of gold and slaves, and traces their routes to the Red Sea. It shows a relatively stable localization of the “production” of gold and slaves in Ethiopia during the medieval period. At the local level, this phenomenon raises questions about various aspects of the Ethiopian slave trade, such as the methods of slave acquisition (raids, wars, punitive expeditions), and the role of physical and cultural otherness (stigmatization and legitimization based on cultural denigration), and their impact on the transformation of political structures.