Slavery in Somalia

A Bantu Servant woman in Mogadishu (1882–1883)

Between 2500–3000 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.[6] This Bantu expansion first introduced Bantu peoples to southern and southeastern Africa.[7][8]

The Bantus inhabiting Somalia are descended from Bantu groups that had settled in Southeast Africa after the initial expansion from Cameroon, and whose members were later captured and sold into the East African slave trade.[7]

Bantus are ethnically, physically, and culturally distinct from Somalis and Ethiopians they have remained marginalized ever since their arrival in the Horn of Africa.[9][10]

All in all, the number of Bantu inhabitants in Somalia before the civil war is thought to have been about 80,000 (1970 estimate), with most concentrated between the Juba and Shabelle rivers in the south.[11] Recent estimates, however, place the figure as high as 900,000 persons.[12]

The Indian Ocean slave trade was multi-directional and changed over time. To meet the demand for menial labor, Bantu slaves were captured by Tanzania slave traders from southeastern Africa were sold in cumulatively large quantities over the centuries to customers in Egypt, Arabia, the Persian Gulf, India, the Far East, the Indian Ocean islands, Ethiopia and Somalia.[13][1]

From 1800 to 1890, between 25,000 and 50,000 Bantu slaves are thought to have been sold from the slave market of Zanzibar alone to the Somali coast by Tanzanian slave traders.[14] Most of the slaves were from the Majindo, Makua, Nyasa, Yao, Zalama, 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" (the word holds multiple implied meanings including "worker", "foreigner", and "servant").[13]

Bantu and Oromo adult and children slaves (referred to collectively as jareer by their Somali handlers.)[15] were purchased in the slave market exclusively to do undesirable work on plantation with oversight from the Arabian peninsula.[15] They were made to work in plantation exclusively owned by Italian government along the southern Shebelle and Jubba rivers, harvesting lucrative cash crops such as grain and cotton.[16] Bantu slaves toiled under the control of the Italian government.[15]

The Bantus were conscripted to forced labor on Italian-owned plantations since the Somalis themselves were averse to what they deemed menial labor,[17] and because the Italians viewed the Somalis as racially superior to the Bantu.[18]

While upholding the perception of Somalis as distinct from and superior to the European construct of "black Africans", both British and Italian colonial administrators placed the Jubba valley population in the latter category. Colonial discourse described the Jubba valley as occupied by a distinct group of inferior races, collectively identified as the WaGosha by the British and the WaGoscia by the Italians. Colonial authorities administratively distinguished the Gosha as an inferior social category, delineating a separate Gosha political district called Goshaland, and proposing a "native reserve" for the Gosha.[18]

The Italian colonial administration abolished slavery in Somalia at the turn of the 20th century. However, some Somali clans notably the Biimal clan opposed this idea. The Bimaals fought Italians to keep their slaves. Although the Italians freed some Bantus, some Bantu groups, remained enslaved well until the 1930s, and continued to be despised and discriminated against by large parts of Somali society.[19]

In the late 19th century, Tanzanians also enslaved groups from the coastal regions of Kenya. Referred to as the Kore, these Nilo-Saharan Maa-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.[2]