AfricaBib 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Subsistence, Slavery and Violence in Lower Omo Valley, ca. 1898-1940s |
| Author: | Gemeda, Guluma |
| Year: | 1990 |
| Periodical: | Northeast African Studies |
| Volume: | 12 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | 5-19 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Ethiopia |
| Subjects: | terrorism slavery subsistence economy History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/43660297 |
| Abstract: | This article proposes an explanation for the widespread violence in the Lower Omo Valley in the 1920s and the reasons for the publicity about the existence of slavery and its impact in Ethiopia in the 1920s and the 1930s. Contrary to current scholarly assumptions, it is argued that the institution of slavery and slave raiding had little to do with the violence in the border region. Rather, the violence can be attributed to subsistence crises and the degradation of the ecological system. These, in turn, were exacerbated by the imposition of British colonial rule in northern Kenya and the administration of the imperial Ethiopian State over the communities in the Lower Omo Valley. The imposition of the administrative system over the small-scale communities in the early twentieth century upset the traditional demographic balance between the pastoralists and their fragile ecology. Despite attempts at reform in the 1930s, these problems persisted until after the end of the Italian period. This essay further contends that the emphasis on slavery (raiding and trade) as the source of violence is untenable. The publicity about slavery in Ethiopia in the 1920s and 1930s, and especially the portrayal of the southwest as the main source of slaves, was politically motivated by some and naively accepted by others. Notes, ref. |
