Slavery, the Slave Trade and the Economic Reorganization of Ethiopia 1916-1935

Abstract

Two historians of Ethiopia have recently suggested that slavery as an institution became an anachronism with the rise of coffee and hides industries during the interwar period. The hypothesis is attractive, for it counters Italian claims at the time of their occupation that slavery and the slave trade were firmly established and that only an Italian administration could put down the barbaric institution.2 Indeed, contemporary reports confirm that slavery and the slave trade were diminishing during the period,3 However, their decline and the emergence of wage labor were complex processes. Specifically, McClellan and Marcus have argued that the continuing decline of the slave trade and slavery in Ethiopia was the result of increasing reliance on wage labor and capital in production. They argue that slaves no longer served an economic function, but, but rather as retainers and domestic servants, they consumed much of the local surplus increasingly required to generate cash. They therefore conclude that slaves became expensive in terms of opportunity costs and that consequently, internal demand rapidly declined.4 As I perceive it, their arguments fail for two reasons. First, a decline in the demand for slaves would have stimulated a fall in the real price, whereas on the contrary, the prices of all types dramatically increased, reflecting what I believe to he a substantial decline in supply rather than demand. Second, the claim that slaves no longer served an economic function ignores the social and political importance of slaves, and more importantly, ignores actual change in the use of slaves during the period.5 While slaves were used by owners primarily'as dependents to increase status, prestige, and often wealth, there were no ethical or legal constraints barring their use in production. Indeed, by the interwar period, as the need for labor in coffee production increased, so more slaves were used, a trend limited only by a decline in the supply.