Slavery in Somalia

Antiquity

The Land of Punt maintained long-standing trade relations with Ancient Egypt in which a variety of goods were exchanged, including enslaved people. Pharaoh Djedkare is known to have kept a Congoid (pygmy) slave acquired through Punt at his court for entertainment, the young Pharaoh Pepi II was likewise intrigued by another Congoid slave procured through Punt.^[5][6]

In the 1st century CE, Barbaroi pirates launched raids on Adulis attacking ships and capturing Habesha people who were then sold as slaves primarily at the city-state of Opone, from which Roman and Greek merchants transported them to Roman Egypt.^[7][8][9] Slaves were also occasionally exported from the port of Malao to India.^[10][11]

According to the ancient writer Ptolemy:

"Besides aromatics, slaves of a superior description are exported from Opone, chiefly for the Egyptian markets."^[12]

Many scholars have suggested the name of the city-state Opone derives from the ancient Egyptian term Pwene, referring to the Land of Punt, which exported both frankincense and enslaved people.^{[13][14][15][16][17]}

Early Habesha slave trade

Al-Idrisi is the earliest author to mention the slave trade, noting that slaves constituted one of the most important exports of Zeila. Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi and Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari state that slaves captured in Abyssinia were taken to a town called Washilu which was located near Ganz in the Ifat Sultanate^[18] where they were prepared for export. The male captives were rendered eunuchs and then sent to Hadiya for medical treatment, after which they were transported to the Somali port of Zeila.^[19]

Yemeni Rasulid sources in the same period mention that most of these Abyssinian concubines and eunuchs brought to Yemen were Jazli, Amhara and Saharti (Tigrayans). Habesha slaves were priced at roughly twice the value of Zanji slaves.^[20][21][22]

These Habesha mamluks often rose to positions of power in Yemen. The Jazli seized power from the Ziyadids and established the Najahid dynasty, Faraj al-Saharti and Surur al-Amhari ruled successively as Wazirs of Zabid between 1133 and 1157 and other Habeshas participated in the state as military leaders such as Ishaq bin Marzuq al-Saharti.^[22][19]

Christian-Muslim wars

In 1376, the Sultan Haqq al-Din II of the Walashma dynasty started a holy war against the Christian Solomonid dynasty.^[24] He was ceaselessly engaged in conflict with the Solomonid king, from whom he took many captives.^[25] According to al-Maqrizi, his successor Sultan Sa'd al-Din raised bigger armies, increased the amount of raids into the Christian kingdom and captured many spoils.^[26] The Sultan led incursions as far as Hadiya which he plundered.^[27]

Raids continued during the Bar Sa'd al-Din. In the 1420s, an emir serving under the Sultan Jamal al-Din II had captured such a large amount of Ethiopian captives that slaves became highly abundant in the Muslim kingdom, Abyssinian slave-girls were reportedly sold for the value of a ring. Each Fakir was also given three slaves.^[24]

According to Maqrizi:

"The great conquests of Jamal al-Din are magnified, and his great battles are numerous, and his deeds, spoils, captives, those he killed, and those he took captive are many.. He killed and captured countless of the Amhara, until the lands of India, Yemen, Hormuz, the Hijaz, Egypt, the Levant, Rome, Iraq, and Persia were filled with the Abyssinian slaves whom he captured and took captive in his conquests."^[28][29][30]

His successor, Sultan Badlay, followed in his footsteps and launched multiple military expeditions into the Ethiopian kingdom. According to Richard Pankhurst, he brought numerous Christian lands under his rule, and burnt at least six churches. He killed many Christian leaders, and made their subjects captive. The Sultan soon grew immensely wealthy, accumulating gold, silver, fine garments, armour, and a large number of slaves.^[25]

In the second half of the 15th century, the Emir Mahfuz of Zeila launched annual incursions into the Christian kingdom during Lent, killing the men and taking women and children captive.^[31][32][33]

According to Rene Basset, Mahfuz's incursions reached as far as the Dukem river near Addis Ababa.^[34][35] Francisco Alvarez states that Mahfuz targeted the regions of Shewa, Amhara, and Fatagar in his raids.^[36] Emir Mahfuz concluded agreements with several Arabian rulers, under which they supplied him with horses, arms, and "everything he wanted" in exchange for the annual delivery of large numbers of Abyssinian slaves to Mecca. On one occasion, Mahfuz reportedly carried off 19,000 slaves, whom he sent as gifts to his friends and supporters in Arabia.^[37] The Ottoman admiral Salman Reis also mentioned these annual raids into Abyssinia.^[38] Sihab al-Din Ahmed says that every Emir in the Barr Sa'd al-Din had the right to raise a small army and lead a raiding party into Abyssinia.^[39] Christian slaves captured by Mahfuz were converted to Islam after being sold in Arabia. Abyssinian slaves were regarded by Arabs as more loyal and more skillful than other enslaved peoples.^[40] Ludovico di Varthema, who visited Zeila in 1503, was surprised by the “very great” number of slaves sold there, noting that they had been captured in battle and were mainly shipped to Mecca, Yemen, Persia, Cairo, and India.^[41] Through Zeila, and to a lesser degree Berbera, passed the main stream of slaves from the Ethiopian hinterland.^[42] According to Amélie Chekroun, raids carried out into the neighboring Christian kingdom enabled forces based in the Bar Saʿd al-Din to seize livestock and slaves, while also serving as a reminder to Muslim populations of the persistent threat posed by renewed hostilities. These expeditions combined economic motives with a strategic function.^[43]

In 1525, the Somali military general Imam Ahmed bin Ibrahim al-Ghazi started his invasion of Ethiopia with a Somali army. At the Battle of Shimbra Kure the Ethiopian forces were decisively defeated, opening the way for Imam Ahmed to conquer Ethiopia, Imam Ahmed and his forces were able to penetrate the heartland of the Christian state in Northern Shewa, Amhara, and Tigray. In some of his campaigns, his soldiers had so many slaves and loot that he was forced to make them abandon it as it was slowing them down.^[44][45] In the course of these military campaigns, Imam Ahmad captured an innumerable amount slaves, this led to a vast, though incalculable, increase in the number of Habesha slaves arriving in the Indian subcontinent. João de Castro wrote that Ethiopian slaves serving as soldiers in India were held in high regard to such a degree that there was a proverb throughout India that good soldiers or servants must be Abyssinian. He added that they were so highly regarded in Bengal, Cambay, Balagate, and other parts of India that those who commanded armies or held high rank were all drawn from among them.^[46] The war was considered a major reason for the importation of Ethiopian slaves into India during the sixteenth century. Abyssinians of slave origin played a major role in the politics of Mughal India, where they were called Habshis.^[47]

Imam Ahmed is recorded saying to his troops:

"If you encounter enemies, fight them, seize their wealth, enslave their women, and kill the men.."^[43]

Leo Africanus writes in the early 16th century that Muslims from the Barr Sa'd al-Din waged war against the Christian Abyssinians, capturing many slaves and sending them to the Ottomans and other rulers in Arabia.^[48]

In the early 17th century, Pedro Paez notes that the invading Oromos captured Amharas from as far as Gojjam and sold them to the Imamate of Awsa.^[49]

Young Ethiopian female slaves were in high demand in the markets of the Muslim world, but the supply of young Ethiopian males was even more important to the Arabian rulers, whose power depended on private armies composed largely of Ethiopian slaves.^[50] The Tahirid Sultans of Yemen had 300 Abyssinian slave bodyguards, all captured from Abyssinia.^[51]

Slaves pens built of stone were found by archeologists in the Medieval town of Amud in Awdal.^[52]

Early slave-trade in southern Somalia

In 14th century Mogadishu, the Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta was served by a eunuch belonging to the ruler of the city.^[53]

As noted by the French historian Thomas Vernet, 17th century Portuguese accounts document traders from Barawa and Mogadishu traveling to Madagascar to buy Malagasy slaves. Merchants from Barawa and Mogadishu reportedly exported 3,000 slaves a year from Madagascar. This slave-trade is documented by Portuguese chroniclers as early as 1506.^[54] Slaves from Madagascar were also sent to Comoros islands where they were collected for shipment to Mogadishu.^[55] According to historian Jeremy Black, slaves from Madagascar were shipped by boat to East African ports, slaves imported into Mogadishu would be exported back to India.^[56]

Oromo slave trade

In the 16th century, the Oromos expanded into the Horn of Africa. A manuscript recovered in Mogadishu by Enrico Cerulli may preserve the earliest reference to Oromo captives in Somalia. In 1573, it records a woman from Mogadishu freeing her slave.^[57] According to Thomas Vernet, captured Oromo women could've been sold as concubines in Somalia as early as the 17th century.^[54]

In the 19th century, Somalis raided Oromo settlements, killing most men and taking women and children as slaves. The captives were incorporated into household life while remaining subjects. Oromo women, valued for their beauty, were kept as concubines, used as domestic servants, or married to other slaves.^{[58][59][60][61][62]}

According to Vittorio Bottego, livestock losses would often lead Oromo families to sell relatives to the Somalis to avoid starvation, while others voluntarily sold themselves to passing caravans.^[63] Giuseppe Piazza also documented that Amharas occasionally sold Arussi Oromo slaves to Somalis.^[64]

People who had been captured in raids could become slaves in both the northern and the southern parts of Somalia.^[65] Somali pastoralists in southern Somalia had control over a substantial numbers of pastoral slaves by the turn of the century. These slaves were primarily, if not entirely of Oromo origin.^[66] In 1908, the Italian Giacinto Vicinanza noted that the slaves in Somalia were of two sorts: Oromo and Swahilis.^[67] According to the scholar Catherine Besteman, the Somalis dominated in warfare during the 19th century, conquering and enslaving the Oroma and Boran."^[68]

Somali raids on the Tana river Oromo reached a peak in the 1870s.^[69] By the 1870s, the steadily increasing number of Oromo slaves from present-day Kenya was estimated at around 10,000 annually crossing the Juba River into the Kismayo area. Demand for slaves increased to the point that a new overland caravan route from Lamu was established in September 1871. Within two years, it had become the principal route for transporting slaves from Kenya to the Benadir region in Somalia. During this period, it was reported that southern Somalis were importing as many as 4,000 slaves annually from the Lamu area. Those who carried out slave raids and those who traded in slaves were often distinct, belonging to different Somali clans. Contemporary accounts described Somali slave raiders as particularly feared, with reports that even rumors of their approach could prompt entire villages to flee or attempt negotiations with Somali elders. In at least one case, town gates were deliberately reinforced in response to the threat of such raids. There were also reports of Somali attacks on entire settlements to obtain captives.^[70]

Through raids rather than bartering, Oromo slaves were acquired by the Ogaden and Cablalla living north of Kismayo.^[73] According to the colonial administrator Charles William Hobley, the Somalis attacked the Oromo in 1842 but were repelled. Peace was concluded in 1845, though fighting resumed in 1848, when the Somalis reportedly gained the upper hand, killing about 2,000 Oromo elders and chiefs and capturing about 80,000 women and children.^[74] One 19th century Ogaden slave trader recounted a series of battles that resulted in the capture of 30,000 livestock and 8,000 Oromo women and children. The heavy traffic in Oromo slaves led one historian to describe the period as a “golden age” for slave traders.^[75] British explorer Harald George Carlos Swayne (1900) described a Somali raiding party of around 1,000 men near the Oromo settlement of Golbanti.^[76]

Richard Pankhurst estimated that between 1800-1850, 1.25 million Oromo, Gurage and Sidama slaves were exported from the ports of Massawa, Tadjura, Zeila, and Berbera.^[77] The slaves taken in the western Oromo regions were usually sent to Massawa, while Zeila served as the main market for those captured from the eastern Oromo areas.^[78] By 1876, large numbers of slaves were still reportedly being exported from Zeila to Hodeida in Yemen.^[79] A French traveller writing from Zeila in 1881 noted that most of the slaves found there were Oromo women captured as prisoners of war.^[80]

During his travel to Harar, Richard Burton met several Oromo slave girls. In the mid 19th and early 20th centuries, Oromo slaves were more common than Bantu slaves in the interior of northern Somali speaking regions.^[81] Harar was a "rendez-vous" for all the slave caravans in the region.^[82]

A British report from 1840 states that the northern Somali tribes also carried out regular slave-raiding expeditions against Oromo populations, with captives sold in Arabian markets, female slaves reportedly sold for 15 to 35 dollars.^[83] In the 1850s, a British crew reportedly observed hundreds of Oromo slaves for sale in the port of Berbera.^[84] The British forced the Habr Awal to sign a treaty that outlawed slavery at Berbera and in the region in 1856.^[85][86] However, in April 1869 the British freed 135 young Oromo slaves from Berbera, bringing them to Aden.^[87]

According to Richard Burton, 6000 Oromo slaves were exported from Zeila and Berbera annually.^[88][89] It is estimated that during the 19th century, more than two thousand slaves were shipped annually from the northern Somali coast to the Persian Gulf.^[90] In 1873, Oromo slaves were reportedly being exported from Zeila to the Persian gulf, with the females costing around 75$.^[91] Oromo slaves were also exported to Persia from the Banadir ports.^[92]

In the south of the peninsula, most of the Oromo slaves captured in the interior were sent to the coast via Bardera.^[93] In the 1840s, Shaikh Abu Bakr of Bardera led several raiding expeditions against the Oromo.^[94] The town of Luuq was also a major inland slave-market.^[95][63] According to Lamberto Vannutelli, aside from the Somalis, a significant number of Borana and Arussi Oromo slaves lived in Luuq.^[96]

Philip Howard Colomb noted that Oromo slave-girls were exported from the city of Barawa. He reported seeing six Oromo slaves being bought there.^[97][98] Second and third-generation slaves were reported to be living in Barawa.^[99] In the decades following the 1860s, nearly half of the 82 slave-carrying dhows captured by the British in East-Africa were caught along the Banaadir coast, most of them in the harbours of Barawa and Merka.^[100] The Tunni Somalis living around Barawa had around 4000 Oromo and Swahili slaves.^[101] In the mid 19th century, contemporary European accounts stated that grain in the environs of Barawa was cultivated by Oromo slaves.^[102] According to Luigi Robecchi, the Tunni owned many plantation slaves.^[103]

When British Captain Smee visited the southern Somali coast in 1811, he described a flourishing slave trade, with enslaved people being transported down the Jubba River and brought to Barawa and other Somali ports for shipment. French vessels at that time were also reported to have taken on slave cargoes at these Somali ports.^[104] In 1866, the German explorer Richard Brenner met in Barawa a man with what he described as two "very pretty" Oromo concubines, with one of them living in his plantation.^{[105][106][107]}

In 1876, British Admiral Sir Francis William Sullivan was interviewed by the British Royal Commission on Fugitive Slaves, during which he described the Somali slave trade as follows:

"-You say that generally speaking there is as much slave trade as ever. Where do the slaves go now? -They are absorbed north. Do they go to Asia? -Yes, they must go to Asia. They gradually go up the Somali coast, which only wants a certain number of them; they can only absorb a certain number of them, and they must go on. It is a very fertile country, with a large population, and Somalis must have slaves; but it is a very warlike tribe, and they make slaves of the conquered people, often of the Galla tribe. -Do they import slaves largely ? -Yes, but chiefly for export again. -The Somali trade in slaves is large ? -Very large. I liberated 320 off Brava, which is on the Somali coast. -Do the Somalis themselves carry on the same trade by sea ? -Yes. There is the case of a dhow which I took, bound from the Somali country to Makullah, with 60 negroes on board, out of whom there were 11 Somalis who declared that all the other negroes were their domestic slaves. -Were there no Arabs on board that vessel ? -There was one Arab, the captain; but the dhow was subsequently restored at the instigation of the Indian government on the strength of the Somali's story. -Do the Somalis as a rule navigate their own vessels ? -Yes; it is only coast navigation in those dhows.^[108]

In July 1891, during his exploration of the Juba River, British Captain Frederick George Dundas saw Oromo slave girls living among Somalis:

"As we came alongside the right bank at Hadjowen, the natives crowded down to look at the vessel.. I noticed numbers of Galla slave-girls about, the different features and lighter colour marking them out from the Somalis, who are very black."^[109]

Johann Ludwig Krapf noted that the Oromo slave girls sold at Somali ports were in great demand in the Swahili coast and sold for up to a hundred dollars, often ending up in the harems of prominent people.^[110] In 19th century Zanzibar, Oromo slave girls were greatly valued and were bought by the Sultans for their harem.^[111] Somalis would also infrequently bring a few captured Oromos to Lamu.^[112]

Oromo women were also common in the harems of Egypt.^[113] Edward William Lane writes that many Egyptians had long maintained a custom of keeping Oromo female slaves instead of marrying local women, which he claimed led to a darkening of their complexion over time.^[114]

German ethnographer Friedrich Ratzel (1897) stated that Oromo women were highly sought after in the harems of Egypt, Nubia, and Zanzibar:

"The Abyssinian women, so highly valued in the harems and dancing-saloons of Egypt and Nubia, are frequently of noble Galla blood. In Zanzibar too, Galla girls are in demand both with Europeans and with Indians."^[115]

In the 19th century, Oromo women were so desired that "there was hardly a harem in Arabia that had no Oromo girls."^[116] In Mecca, the widespread practice of keeping female slaves led to a mixture of Abyssinian ancestry, which was said to give the Meccawis a distinct complexion compared to desert Arabs.^[117] The British traveller Charles Doughty noted that there were so many Oromos in Mecca and Medina that “Habashy” was commonly spoken from house to house.^[118] French explorer Edmond Combes found what he described as "a large number of Oromo slaves" in Yemen.^[119] According to Maurice Tamisier, the Arabian port of Jeddah was inhabited in 1834 by a large number of Oromo slaves of both sexes.^[120][121] According to Richard Burton, most Abyssinian slave girls in Arabia were Oromo.^[122] Edward William Lane (1871) says something similar.^[123]

Prices of Oromo slaves in Somalia according to Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti (1904)^[73][124]

Bantu slave trade

The Indian Ocean slave trade was multi-directional and changed over time. To meet the demand for menial labor, Bantu slaves were captured from southeastern Africa and sold in cumulatively large quantities over the centuries to customers in Egypt, Arabia, Somalia, Persia, India, the Far East, and the Indian Ocean islands.^[125][126]

In the late 18th and 19th century, growing demand for agricultural produce in the Arabian Peninsula drove Somalis to expand farming, however labor shortages in southern Somalia left much fertile land uncultivated, leading Somalis to purchase Bantu slaves from Arab in Zanzibar to supply the necessary labor.^{[127][128][129]} Bantu slaves were made to work in plantations owned by Somalis along the Shebelle and Jubba rivers, harvesting lucrative cash crops such as grain and cotton.^[130]

The Somali Bantus belong to several ethnic groups, namely Majindo, Mnyasa, Mkuwa, Mzihuwa, Mushunguli, and Molima, each consisting of numerous subclans. Their ancestral roots can be traced back to various historical and modern African nations, including many in Central Africa, those of the Congo region, Mozambique, Malawi, and Tanzania.^[132][133] Bantus are ethnically, physically, and culturally distinct from Somalis and Ethiopians and they have remained marginalized ever since their arrival to the Horn of Africa.^[134][135]

While traveling through the Somali country in 1900, Colonel Harald George Carlos Swayne met some of these Bantu slaves:

"On the Webbe Shabeleh, a river race called the Adone, also negroes, were working in the fields and punting rafts on the river for their masters, the Somalis."^[76]

From 1800 to 1890, between 25,000 and 50,000 Bantu slaves are thought to have been sold from the slave markets of Zanzibar to the Somali coast.^[134] Most of the slaves were from the Makua, Nyasa, Yao, Zaramo and Zigua ethnic groups of Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi.^[125] When the slave trade from Zanzibar to the Arabian peninsula was banned, the slaves captured by Zanzibari slave traders in East Africa were no longer transported from the Swahili coast to the Arabian peninsula on sea via Zanzibar due to the naval blockade, but instead forced to walk by land to Somalia, from which they could enter the slave dhows to Arabia away from British eyes.^[136]

Most of the Bantu living in southern Somalia are descendants of Bantus who were enslaved by the Sultanate of Zanzibar in the 18th century.^[137] But the Somalis also sometimes raided and enslaved neighboring Bantu groups in Kenya, especially the Pokomo. British reports in 1894 described how the Somalis would come to the Pokomo country nearly every year during the dry season, carrying off women and children into slavery, while the Pokomo reportedly never dreamed of offering any resistance.^[138] By 1898, the Pokomo began building new villages in inaccessible jungle areas due to frequent Somali slave-raids. ^[139]

In 1912, a French explorer described how the Pokomo region had been so ravaged by the Somalis that it was nearly deserted :

"If the Ndura was so sparsely inhabited, it was because the Somalis had ravaged it in every way, stealing, pillaging, kidnapping women and children as slaves, and killing those who defended themselves."^[140]

Prices of Swahili/Bantu slaves in Somalia according to Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti (1904)^[73][124]

Italian colonial government

Despite the Brussels conference of 1890 where the colonial apowers abolished the legal status of slavery in the colonies, the slave trade in Somalia continued unabated. From 1893, the Italian colonial authorities in Somalia did not recognize the legal status of slavery and slaves were thus legally free to leave their owners, but the Italians often returned fugitive slaves to their owners. After pressure from humanitarians, the Italians officially banned the slave trade and declared that all slaves born after 1890 were legally free.^[161]

In 1893, a shocking report revealed that the Italian government had failed to adhere to the signed obligations of 1890 :

"The administration handed fugitive slaves from the interior to those who claimed to own them, and sometimes with cruelty, imprisoning and chastising them before consigning them to those who came to claim them, in open contravention of the explicit directions of the Brussels Act. It was found convenient to call slavery domestic. Records of the purchase and sale of slaves, their succession to new owners, their transfer, mortgage and pawning were inscribed in the records of the Qadi Courts. All of this was done without the government in Rome or the Royal Commissioner Sorrentino."^[162]

In the 1896, Italians tried to forcibly confiscate the slaves of the Somalis but failed, and top colonial administrator Antonio Cecchi was killed during the military expedition in the interior. The Somalis resisted abolition, arguing that Islamic law allowed them to hold slaves. Somali religious leaders denounced Italian orders, insisting that Somali law, based on the Quran and the Prophet, took precedence over colonial regulations.^[150]

The Italian administrators in Somalia at the turn of the century did nothing to discourage slavery. In fact, several Italian administrators, including the royal commissioner, purchased female slaves from the Somalis to be used as concubines. By 1903, one third of Barawa and Mogadishu's population and nearly one fifth of Marka's population were slaves. From 1905 to 1908, the colonial government negotiated the freedom of 2300 slaves, however these ex-slaves were told to remain in their master's homes as servants.^[163]

In December 1903, around twenty Oromo women, some of whom were slaves asking for manumission certificates, went to the colonial government offices to request permission to accompany a caravan from Barawa to Bardera. The Italian officials denied them the certificates on the grounds that caravans were forbidden to travel with women and that such women could only have one intention; to practice prostitution. The women wanted to travel closer to their own original homelands in Oromia, where they had been caught as slaves. The Italian officials rejected their petition again on the grounds that the Oromo-speaking area was continuously being raided by Somali slave traders and therefore unsafe.^[164] Italian explorer Lamberto Vannutelli also recounts meeting Oromo and Sidama slaves at Luuq who begged for his help to escape from the Somalis and return to Ethiopia, though the exact number of captives he encountered remains unclear.^[165]

In 1904, a scandal broke out when a concubine committed suicide rather than consent to sexual relations with a prominent Italian officer. It was later reported that he had frequently sought sexual favours from enslaved women through their masters.^[65]

In 1906, the Italians did free slaves in urban territories via compensation to the masters, but did not act to free slaves in the interior of the country and in fact tried to stop the wave of fugitives who left their owners as news of the Italian emancipation reached the rural interior.^[161] By 1910, the colonial government was reluctant to free all the slaves in Somalia because freeing all the slaves at once would force the free Somalis, unaccustomed to working their own field, to abandon them and resume the nomadic way of life, which the Italians did not want to happen.^[166]

The Italians reported to the Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery in the 1930s that the slavery and slave trade in Somalia had now been abolished.^[161] Although the Italians freed some Bantus, some Bantu groups remained enslaved well into the 1930s and continued to be despised and discriminated against by large parts of Somali society.^[167]

Most of the freed slaves went on to work in Italian owned plantation or as client-farmers for Somalis.^[166] The Italians regarded Somalis as naturally disinclined toward agricultural labor :

"Hand power in the Benadir is scarce for a complex series of reasons of a moral, economic and demographic kind.. overall there is a natural slothfulness of pure Somalis towards work in the fields. Only slaves and freed slaves practice this dishonourable activity, it is only among them that we gather the small amount of manpower which is available."^[168]

By 1935, the Italians in collaboration with former Somali slave owners introduced coerced labor laws and the forced conscription of the freed slaves in the agricultural industry, with over 100 Italian plantations in the river valleys. The emancipated Bantu were forced to abandon their own farms to work solely as farm laborers on plantations owned by the Italian colonial government.^[169]

The Italians definitionally separated the ex-slave population from the Somali population for purposes of conscripting laborers.^[170] According to Kenyan historian Ahmed Idha Salim, Somali men generally avoided plantation labour due to an aversion to manual labour.^[171] Almost all the people conscripted into these forced plantations were former slaves or related to former slaves. The colonial government tasked ethnic Somalis with drafting these former slaves under their control to work on plantations. Several demonstrations against conscription took place and many conscripted men fled the estates. As a result, the Italians promised men conscripted into forced labor the right to choose any woman on the plantation as a wife, without her consent. Contemporary informants reported that without the company of a woman, most young men would have fled conscription.^[172]

The British abolished this system after defeating the Italians in WW2. One British official described the scheme to be indistinguishable from slavery.^[173]

British colonial government

As did the Italians, The British government of the East Africa protectorate consistently intervened on the side of the Somalis to maintain the servitude status of the Oromos. Despite their official actions, the British clearly recognized that the position of the Oromo living among the Somalis amounted to slavery. Summarizing the situation of Oromos living under the Somalis in 1930, the district commissioner of Garissa District wrote that every Oromo living with the Somalis is virtually a slave and therefore exploitable. To bury the issue, in 1936 the British falsely declared that the Wardey (Oromo slaves) had ceased to exist as an ethnic entity, having been fully assimilated as Somalis.^[174]

Officially, slavery in Northern Somalia was abolished during the British Somaliland protectorate. However, at the turn of the 20th century, British naval officers routinely ignored orders to police the slave trade, and slave running from the British Somaliland coast went virtually unchecked as a result. Severe infighting among northern Somalis during the Dervish Wars led to the decline of the slave trade, as groups turned on each other instead of carrying out slave raids, contributing to a sharp population decrease in the process.^[175]