Slavery in Somalia

Slavery in Somalia existed as a part of the East African slave trade and Arab slave trade. To meet the demand for menial labor, Bantus from southeastern Africa slaves were exported from Zanzibar and were sold in cumulatively large numbers over the centuries to customers in East Africa and other areas in Northeast Africa and Asia by the Somalis. Ethiopians, especially Amharas and Tigrayans were also captured and sold to traders from Arabia, India, Greece, and beyond.
Oromo subjects were favoured due to their features compared to other slaves. Additionally, they were not viewed as very different from their Somali owners, thus being higher in price compared to other East Africans.

History

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 slaved sprocured through Punt.
In the 1st century CE, Barbaroi pirates launched raids on Adulis attacking visiting 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.
According to the ancient writer Ptolemy :

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

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.

Early Habesha slave trade

Al-Idrisi is the earliest author to mention the slave trade, noting that slaves constituted one of the most important export 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, there 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.
Yemeni Rasulid sources in the same period mention that most of these Abyssinian concubines and eunuchs brought to Yemen were Jazli, Amharas and Saharti (Tigrayans). Habesha slaves were priced at roughly twice the value of Zanji slaves.
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.

Christian-Muslim wars

In 1376, the Sultan Haqq al-Din II of the Walashma dynasty started a holy war against the Christian Solomonid dynasty. He had won 20 battle in 10 years and took many captives according to al-Maqrizi.
His successor Sultan Sa'ad al-Din raised bigger armies, increased the amount of raids into the Christian kingdom and captured many spoils. The Sultan won many battles during his reign and led incursions as far as Hadiya which he plundered.
After winning a battle against Negus Yeshaq and routing his forces, the Sultan Jamal al-Din II of the Barr Sa'd al-Din chased him throughout Abyssinia for three days, killing many and taking numerous captives along the way. He then remained in the region for 3 months, during which he burned churches and houses, seized wealth, and took numerous women and children captive, before returning home to his realm.
The Sultan later sent one of his generals to Bali, where he killed, captured, and enslaved countless people, acquiring immense booty in the process. So numerous were the captives that each poor man was given three slaves, and because of their sheer number, a single slave was sold for a bundle of paper or a single ring.
During his reign, Sultan Jamal al-Din captured and sold such large numbers of slaves that his name became known across the Muslim world. Habesha captives from his campaigns filled the lands of Yemen, Hijaz, Persia, Syria, India, and even Greece.
His successor, Sultan Badlay, followed in his footsteps and launched multiple military expeditions into the Amhara region. He captured and enslaved so many people that his followers grew extremely wealthy from the plunder.
Sultan Badlay sent his brother, Khair al-Din, to fight the Amhara. Khair al-Din conquered several regions and plundered many Christian lands, destroying six major churches and seizing large amounts of wealth. The campaigns were ultimately cut short by a severe plague that affected both kingdoms.
Throughout the reign of Negus Eskender and Na'od, the Emir Mahfuz of Zeila launched annual incursions into the Christian kingdom during Lent, killing the men and taking women and children captive.
According to R. Basset, Mahfuz's incursions reached as far as the Dukem river near Addis Ababa. Francisco Alvarez states that Mahfuz targeted the regions of Shewa, Amhara, and Fatagar in his raids.
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. The Ottoman admiral Salman Reis also mentioned these annual raids into Abyssinia. 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.
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.
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. Through Zeila, and to a lesser degree Berbera, passed the main stream of slaves from the Ethiopian hinterland.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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. The Tahirid Sultans of Yemen had 300 Abyssinian slave bodyguards, all captured from Abyssinia.
Slaves pens built of stone were found by archeologists in the Medieval town of Amud in Awdal.

Origin of the Bantu slave trade

2500 years ago, speakers of the original proto-Bantu language group began a millennia-long series of migrations eastward from their original homeland in the general Cameroon area of Central Africa. This Bantu expansion first introduced Bantu peoples to southern and southeastern Africa.
To satisfy the demands of the market for agricultural produce in the Arabian Peninsula and cater to the local needs, Somali clans in the Lower Shabelle region and along the ancient Banadir coast began the procurement of Bantu slaves from Arab slave traders to provide labor and serve as client farmers for the Somali clans.

"The farming was performed by local client-farmers, boon, or low status groups of the dominant Biimaal, Geledle, Hintirre, Murosade, Mobileyn and other predominantly pastoral clans which had established control of small portions of the valley. They produced mainly to serve local markets. Ample, fertile land remained uncultivated, due to a chronic shortage of farm labor. In order to respond to market demands for grain in South Arabia, the local Somali clans of the Lower Shabelle began purchasing slaves from Arab and Swahili slave ships. These slaves came first from Zanzibar."

The Bantus residing in Somalia are the descendants of Bantu individuals who were taken captive and transported to Somalia by Arab slave merchants during the 18th and 19th centuries to work as agricultural laborers. 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.
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.
All in all, the number of Bantu inhabitants in Somalia before the civil war is thought to have been about 80,000, with most concentrated between the Juba and Shabelle rivers in the south. Recent estimates place the figure as high as 900,000 people, however, lower estimates place the figure between 500,000 and 600,000.

East African 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.
From 1800 to 1890, between 25,000 and 50,000 Bantu slaves are thought to have been sold from the slave markets of Zanzibar alone to the Somali coast by Somali slave traders. Most of the slaves were from the Makua, Nyasa, Yao, Zaramo and Zigua ethnic groups of Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi. Collectively, these Bantu groups are known as Mushunguli, which is a term taken from Mzigula, the Zigua tribe's word for "people".

19th to 20th centuries

Bantu adult and children slaves were purchased in the slave markets explicitly to do undesirable work on plantations with oversight. They were made to work in plantations exclusively owned by the Italian government along the southern Shebelle and Jubba rivers, harvesting lucrative cash crops such as grain and cotton. Bantu slaves toiled under the control of the Italian government.
The Bantus were conscripted to forced labor on Italian-owned plantations since the Somalis themselves were averse to what they deemed menial labor, and because the Italians viewed the Somalis as racially superior to the Bantu. Catherine Lowe Besteman notes:
The Italian colonial administration abolished slavery in Somalia at the turn of the 20th century. However, some Somali clans notably the Biimaal clan opposed this idea. The Biimaals fought the Italians to keep their slaves.

Nilotic slaves

In the late 19th century, groups from the coastal regions of Kenya were also sold into slavery. Referred to as the Kore, these Nilo-Saharan-speaking Nilotes were later emancipated by British colonial troops. They subsequently resettled on the Lamu seaboard as fishermen and cultivators. Like many Bantus, the Kore reportedly now speak the Afro-Asiatic Somali language on account of their time in servitude.

Other slaves

In addition to Bantu plantation slaves, Somalis sometimes enslaved peoples of Oromo pastoral backgrounds that were captured during wars and raids on settlements. However, there were marked differences in terms of the perception, capture, treatment and duties of the Oromo slaves in comparison to Bantu slaves.
On an individual basis, Oromo subjects were not viewed as racially jareer by their Somali captors. The Oromo captives also mostly consisted of young children and women, both of whom were taken into the families of their abductors; men were usually killed during the raids. Oromo boys and girls were adopted by their Somali patrons as their own children. Prized for their beauty and viewed as legitimate sexual partners, many Oromo women became either wives or concubines of their Somali captors, while others became domestic servants. In some cases, entire Oromo clans were assimilated on a client basis into the Somali clan system.
Neither captured Oromo children nor women were ever required to do plantation work, and they typically worked side-by-side with the Somali pastoralists. After an Oromo concubine gave birth to her Somali patron's child, she and the child were emancipated and the Oromo concubine acquired equal status to her abductor's Somali wife. According to the Somali Studies pioneer Enrico Cerulli, in terms of diya payments in the Somali customary law, the life of an Oromo slave was also equal in value to that of an ordinary ethnic Somali.
Freedom for Oromo slaves was obtained through manumission and was typically accompanied by presents such as a spouse and livestock. During abolition, former Oromo slaves, who generally maintained intimate relations with the Somali pastoralists, were also spared the harsh treatment reserved for the Bantu and Nilotic plantation slaves.

Abolition

The Italian colonial administration abolished slavery in Somalia at the turn of the 20th century. However, some Somali clans notably the Biimaal clan opposed this idea. The Biimaals fought the Italians to keep their slaves.
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 if the owners belonged to clans friendly to the Italians; in 1903–1904, after pressure from humanitarians, the Italians banned the slave trade and declared that all slaves born after 1890 were legally free.
When the Italian government took over the administration of Somalia in 1906, they did free slaves in urban territories via compensation, 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 reach the rural interior since it was a cause of unrest, but numerous slaves did leave their enslavers in the inland and in any cases settled in their own villages of former slaves and client cultivators of land under clans.
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.
However, 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.