Some factors affecting the prosperity of trade in Ethiopia, 14th–18th Centuries

Abstract

Trade has long been one of the significant economic activities in the Ethiopian region and the Horn of Africa. However, some challenges had been hampering the development and prosperity of the trade. Thus, the main purpose of this article is to explore factors that affected the development and prosperity of trade in Ethiopia between the 14th and the 17th centuries. To carry out this study, both primary and secondary sources are employed. Using thematic analysis, a qualitative research approach, the study attempts to explore the factors that handicapped the development of trade in Ethiopia in the period understudy. This study revealed that the underdevelopment of trade during the period was not associated to a single factor. Rather factors like negative social attitude toward trade; the state’s limited control over the origin of items of trade; uncertain access to the Sea; the shift in the diplomacy of the state and limited diversity in the items of trade; and the absence of currency had contributed for the underdevelopment of trade. Thereby, this article argues that the limited growth of trade is associated with multiple factors which were hampering the commercial sector from attaining its utmost level of prosperity.

Keywords:

• Trade
• Ethiopia
• factors affecting trade
• underdevelopment

REVIEWING EDITOR:

• Samuel Adu-Gyamfi, History and Political Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology College of Arts and Social Science, Kumasi, Ghana

SUBJECT:

• History
• African History
• Economic History

1. Introduction

After the fall of Aksum at the end of the first millennium, the Zagwe dynasty assumed the political leadership of the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia¹ (Butzer, 1981). The center of the Zagwe led Christian Kingdom was ‘the regions of southern Tigre and Angot, and its population consisted mainly of the Tigrä and Tigrigna speaking tribes in the north, the Christianized Agäw of Lasta and Wag, and the Amhara who inhabited the expanding zone in and south of Angot’ (Taddesse, 1972). Although they failed to build strong political power which could long last, the Zagwe rulers, mainly King Lalibela, were known for Christianity and building magnificent rock-hewn churches in Ethiopian history. After King Yǝkunno Amlak controlled the Christian kingdom and established his own ruling dynasty, often called the ‘Solomonid’ in Ethiopian historiography, the Zagwe dynasty ceased to exist (Derat, 2020). Consolidating the former Christian provinces in the north, the ‘Solominic’ rulers had widened their territories to the south, southeast and west of the Ethiopian region in the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries (Taddesse, 1972).

In addition to the Christian kingdom, which had been ruled by the Aksumite, the Zagwe and the ‘Solomonic’ rulers, different Muslim polities began to exist since the twelfth and thirteenth centuries along the eastern and southern part of the Ethiopian region (Chekroun & Hirsch, 2020).

The economy of medieval Ethiopia had long been principally agrarian. As described by Pankhurst, ‘the medieval Ethiopian agriculture […] was on the whole fairly productive, for the soil in the inhabited areas […] tended to be fertile, and the highlands in normal years were blessed by abundant rainfall’ (Pankhurst, 1992). The productivity of medieval Ethiopian agriculture was also witnessed by different foreign sources from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries (Beckingham & Huntingford, 1961; Bruce, 1790, p. III; Crawford, 1958; Foster, 1949).

Along with agriculture, trade been practiced in the Ethiopian region and the Horn of Africa.² It had been supplementary economic sector that brought significant amount of income to the rulers of Christian kingdom. Trade had also been a source of conflict and rivalry between the Christian state and Muslim principalities of the Ethiopian region from the fourteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century (Taddesse, 1972). Even after the establishment of Gondӓr, in the first half of the seventeenth century, trade began to flourish and bring some amount of income for the consolidated Christian kingdom. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though it showed some sort of decline in the eighteenth century, trade continued to be an additional source of income for the kings as well as the local rulers (Berry, 2005).

The Ethiopian trade of the period had been conducted through various trade routes that traversed the interior part of the Ethiopian region and the Horn. Along these trade routes, there were different local markets where domestic trade used to take place. These trade routes were mainly connected to the coasts of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Between the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, according to Taddesse, two main trade routes linked the interior of Ethiopia with the coastal areas. The first trade route ran southwards from the port of Massawa on the Red Sea coast, through the heartlands of the Christian state, to Šӓwa, which was one of the centers of power of the Christian state. There were two main parallel trade routes along this north-south direction of the trade. The second trade route stretched from the interior part of Ethiopia to the port of Zӓyla and Bӓrbӓra on the Gulf of Aden coast. This route ran from the port of Zӓyla and Bӓrbӓra westwards to the regions of Dӓwaro, Ifat, Damot, Guragé, and Hadiya (Taddesse, 1972).

The port of Massawa and Zӓyla were thus the prominent sea outlets for the interior part of the Ethiopian region though there were other ports like Arqiqo (a mainland port on the opposite side of Massawa), Suakin and the mainland port of ᾈouan on the Ethiopian side of the Red Sea, as Taddesse described, the port of Massawa preceded that of Zӓyla. It was serving the interior part of the Ethiopian region probably starting from the fall of the port of Adulis in the eighth century (Taddesse, 1972). Following the rise of the Dahlak Sultanate in the tenth century AD, the port of Massawa had been serving as the main link between the Muslim-dominated Red Sea coast and the Christian highlands. However, from the fourteenth century onwards Massawa became the main target of the Christian highland rulers, and subsequently, the influence of the Christian state over it began to grow (Smidt, 2007).

On the other hand, the port of Zӓyla became important in the twelfth century following the strengthening of the Muslim principalities in the southeastern part of the Ethiopian region. The Christian state had also exercised considerable influence on the trade conducted along this port mainly between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries. When the Christian state shifted its center from Šӓwa to the Lake Ṭana region, however, the importance of Zӓyla encountered casual decline. It was only after the beginning of the nineteenth century³ that the port of Zӓyla began to serve as an outlet for the interior trade of the Ethiopian region (Abir, 1968a; Taddesse, 1972).

The expansion of the Ethiopian kingdom into new territories later in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was repeatedly impelled by the desire to control trade routes. After various territorial expansions of the fourteenth century, ‘various networks of trade routes’, which stretched from the Red Sea ports and the port of Zayla to the interior of the Christian state, could become under the control of the Christian state (Mengistie et al., 2023). Along the aforementioned trade routes, the Christian rulers used to generate a significant amount of income from the trading activities that had been conducted between the Ethiopian interior and the coastal areas. For example, King Amdӓ Ṣəyon had commercial agents even who traded on his behalf by traveling as far as the coasts of the Gulf of Aden. Other Christian rulers who came after Amdӓ Ṣəyon were also engaged and had gained a considerable amount of income from the trading activities of the region (Taddesse, 1972). However, trade as economic activity, could not significantly contributed for the betterment of the lives of the medieval Christian society of Ethiopia (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Trade routes of the Ethiopian region, 1332–1527 (Source, Taddesse Tamrat, 1972).

Along the major trade routes of the Ethiopian region, there were different market centers. Different itinerants of the fifteenth and the early sixteenth centuries including Francisco Alvarez confirmed the existence of various markets in different parts of the Ethiopian region (Beckingham & Huntingford, 1961; Crawford, 1958). With regard to the markets of the medieval Ethiopian region, Wion has identified both local markets and big markets-towns that were found in the Ethiopian region. According to Wion;

Important medieval locations include Däbarwa in present-day Eritrea; Gändäbälo, probably located in the eastern part of today’s Šäwa; ‘Manadelei’ in Tǝgray and/or Dobaʾa country; ‘Ancona’ in Angot, where the caravans gathered and appointed a captain called nägadras; and Kalǧur, the city located at the end of the trade route from Zäylaʿ, where Muslim merchants settled. Bärara, often presented in sources as the Christian capital city in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, was also an important market. It can be located in southern Šäwa, between Mount Yǝrär and the Wäčäča range, south of Addis Ababa, where various ruins have been identified, in an area perfectly fit for linking the different political and economic entities of the time. (Wion, 2020)

Furthermore, contemporary sources also attested the existence of some markets in different part of the Ethiopian region. For instance, there were important markets such as Wasӓl, somewhere between Amhara and Gahn provinces; Gəndӓbӓllo, somewhere close to Aliyu Amba; Durbit, in northern part of Šäwa; and Ayfӓrӓs, south of Šäwa (Crawford, 1958; Stenhouse, 2003).

Since the second half of the sixteenth century –following the devastating war between Adal and the Christian kingdom and the destructive Oromo invasion – the Christian rulers began to camp around Lake Ṭana, and different roving capitals were established in the region. Later, Gondär emerged as prosperous commercial and political center in the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Hence, following the establishment of Gondar as capital of the Christian state, the importance of the east-west trade route for the Christian state began to decline. On the other hand, the trade with Sudan and the outside world through the port of Massawa had gained a new momentum to prosper (Huntingford, 1989; Pankhurst, 2010). Gondär, the capital of the Christian kingdom; Čǝlga, a place between Gondär and Ethio-Sudanese border; Adwa, in Tigre and Dǝbarwa, the seat of Bahǝr nӓgaš were important markets in the newly boosting trading corridor, between the western part of Ethiopia and the Red Sea (Abbink, 2003; Salvadore, 2012).

Bringing a significant amount of money for rulers of the Ethiopian region and having the potential of prospering, why did the trade of Ethiopia continue to be underdeveloped will be the principal question that requires intellectual inquiry in the period understudy? Thus, the central point of this article will be pointing out factors that were affecting the development of trade in the medieval history of Ethiopia.

2. Sources and methods

This article investigates the trading activities of Ethiopia and the Horn between the fourteenth and the eighteenth century. Studying such issues is a very difficult academic endeavor, because the economic activities of the period were not properly recorded and documented. There is a paucity of primary sources that provide a detailed discussion of economic activities in general and of trade in particular. This article, therefore, used the available fragmentary primary sources and principally depended on secondary sources which comprise books, articles, book chapters, and Encyclopedia Aethiopica sources.

Using both primary and secondary sources, we have thematically examined how different factors had been affecting the growth of trade in the medieval history of Ethiopia. Thus, to carry out this analysis we have employed a purely qualitative historical research approach.

3. Factors affecting trade

Trade had brought a considerable amount of revenue for the state on various occasions (Abir, 1968a; Dombrowski, 1984). It is difficult, however, to declare that trade had sufficiently contributed to the prosperity of the state and the Christian society as its potential could have provided. Thus, we will argue here why the trade of medieval Ethiopia had failed to properly flourish and contribute to the prosperity of the medieval Ethiopian economy. Attributing a single factor to the underdevelopment of the trading sector would be difficult because various factors seem to have been responsible for the weak performance of the trade. Hence, this paper came up with the hypothesis that different factors were inescapably hampering the trading sector from developing and bringing the desired amount of revenue for the state and even for the society as well. These factors greatly affected the commercial sector in particular and the economy in general.

3.1. Negative social attitude

As an economic activity, trade had hardly been acceptable among static and traditional Christian Ethiopian society. In the majority of the highland Christian population trade, as an occupation, was regarded with contempt, and mainly associated with the Muslims (Ishihara, 2010). ‘The Amhara-Tigrian Christian society composed of nobles, priests, soldiers, and agriculturalists had looked down for many generations on commercial activities and crafts’ (Abir, 1968a). This little attention of the Christians to the occupation of trade helped the Muslims to have been dominant in the long distance trade of medieval Ethiopia. Concerning the engagement of Muslim traders in the Ethiopian trade, Pankhurst described as follows:

The foreign trade of Ethiopia was deeply influenced by its location in the Middle East where the Arabs had long since acquired a position of commercial dominance. The presence of Arab merchants in and around Ethiopia was reported by al-Ya’qubi as early as the ninth century. Ethiopian Muslims, some of whom descended from Arabs and intermarried with them, gradually also became involved in trade, and, before long, were likewise engaged in commercial missions on behalf of the Christian rulers of the country. This development […] had already taken place by the early fourteenth century when Emperor Amdӓ Ṣəyon had ‘many’ such Muslim traders in his service (Pankhurst, 1992).

The predominance of Muslims in trade was also described by the Portuguese traveler, Francisco Alvarez, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In the time of Alvarez (between 1520 and 1526), the major actors of Ethiopian trade were still Muslims (Beckingham & Huntingford, 1961). The accounts of other European travelers like Manuel de Almeida (in the first half of the seventeenth century), Jacques Poncet (at the close of the seventeenth century), and James Bruce (in the third quarter of the eighteenth century) have also attested to the predominance of Muslim merchants in the Ethiopian trading activities of the period (Bruce, 1790; Foster, 1949). In almost all parts of the period covered by this study, Muslim traders had entirely dominated the Ethiopian trade⁴ mainly the foreign trade of Ethiopia (Ludolf, 1684; Taddesse, 1972).

Nevertheless, despite the Ethiopian trade being dominated by Muslims, the existence of a handful of Christian merchants had also been confirmed by some evidence of the period, particularly since the early period of the sixteenth century. According to Alvarez, in addition to the Muslim merchants who were the ‘principal merchants of clothes and large goods’, there were also several Christian merchants around the temporary camps of the early sixteenth century. The Christian merchants were mainly engaged in selling, as Alvarez stated, ‘cheap things such as bread, wine, flour, and meat; and the Moors [Muslims] can sell nothing to eat because in this country [the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia] they did not eat anything which the Moors [Muslims] make, nor meat which they kill’ (Beckingham & Huntingford, 1961).

Nevertheless, contemporary evidence, Futuh Al-Habaša, also reported the persecution of different Christian merchants of Gəndӓbӓllo who had belonged to the Christian kingdom (Stenhouse, 2003). This confirms the existence of Christian merchants in the first half of the sixteenth century. In addition to the Muslim and Christian local merchants of Ethiopia, there had also been different foreign Christian merchants mainly Armenians (Pankhurst, 1992).

It is not to argue that the predominance of Muslims in the trading arena impeded the development of Ethiopian trade in the period covered by this study, rather the negative outlooks of the Christians and their limited engagement in trade had affected the Christian society by depriving them of alluring benefits of trade. Although the existence of a few Christian merchants is confirmed by some pieces of evidences of the period, as outlined above, the development of the trading class did not seem to have evolved in the predominantly Christian society of medieval Ethiopia. This little development of trade as a significant economic activity had then affected both the society and the state of the period. It was because the society could not benefit from the income that would have been generated from trade, and the state had also failed to collect substantial revenue from trade in the form of tax.

3.2. State’s limited control over the origins of items of trade

Another important issue that had a great impact on the development of trade in Ethiopia had been the loose control of the Christian state over the origin of the items of trade. In the long history of Ethiopia, the southwestern part of modern Ethiopia had been the origin of the Ethiopian long distance trade. Some historical pieces of evidence confirm that the southwestern region had long been the source of major export items of the Ethiopian international trade, from the ancient to the modern period. Concerning the dependence of the Christian state on the southern and western Ethiopian region for important items of trade, Abir states that ‘Ethiopia’s traditional luxurious products, gold, ivory, musk, precious skins, and spices came mainly from its southern and western provinces’ (Abir, 1968b). Donald Crummey has also stated that ‘commodity production, particularly for the long distance trade, generally lay beyond the frontiers of Abyssinian society and the control of the Abyssinian state’ (Crummey, 1980). The failure of the Christian state to have sustainable control over the source of Ethiopian international trade seems to have hardly enabled it to strengthen its trading activities and to get the blessings of the trade.

The Christian kingdom of Ethiopia had only limited control over the southern and southwestern regions of Ethiopia. In the south-central part, there was the kingdom of Hadya, which had been one of the major sources of items of trade for the long distance trade of medieval Ethiopia. The kingdom of Hadya was incorporated into the medieval Christian state during the reign of King Amdӓ-Ṣəyon. Amdӓ-Ṣəyon’s first conquest over Hadya was conducted around 1316–17 (Anwar, 2022; Taddesse, 1972). Nevertheless, the Christian state developed a stronghold over Hadya only after the second conquest of King Amdӓ-Ṣəyon on Hadya around 1330 (Anwar, 2022). Since the mid of the fourteenth century, Hadya had continued being one of the major sources of Ethiopian trade until the first half of the sixteenth century. Since Hadya was crucial for long distance trade and was ‘gateway to the southwestern chiefdoms of Wälaytta, Gamo, Gäda and Abäzo’, Zär’a Ya’ǝqob attempted to establish a political marriage alliance with the ruling family of Hadya. Zär’a Ya’ǝqob married the later queen Eleni, the daughter gärad Muhammed, in the mid of the fifteenth century. Although Muhammed’s son and successor, gärad Mahiko, attempted unsuccessful rebellion against the emperor by refusing to pay tribute, Hadiya seemed to have continued being loyal for the Christian kingdom, until the end of the century (Deresse, 2020).

After the Christian state shifted its political center to the Lake Ṭana region and later to Gondär due to the war of Imam Ahmed of Adal, and the subsequent large-scale Oromo population movement, its control over the kingdom of Hadya began to decline (Merid, 1971). Even if some Christian kings endeavored to regain their control over former provinces of the south and southeast in the second half of sixteenth century, these regions had been detached from the Christian kingdom seated at Gondär. In turn, this could have inevitably forced the Christian kingdom to drop the lucrative Zäyla trade routes that had been serving as a source of income for the rulers.

The medieval political entities in the southwestern part of Ethiopia were the kingdom of Damot and Enarya. These two states covered the resourceful southwestern region where the major export items of Ethiopia had been extracted. The kingdom of Damot had become part of the Christian state following the large-scale territorial expansion of King Amdӓ-Ṣəyon. Hereafter, the kingdom of Damot had been one of the tributary provinces of the Christian state until the first half of the sixteenth century. The attempts of the Christian kings to restore the province of Damot in the second half of the sixteenth and the early period of the seventeenth century were not successful; rather, the province of Damot had fallen under the Oromo expansion and eventual settlement (Tessema, 1986). The advent and the subsequent settlement of the Oromo to the region seem to have made the source of Ethiopian trade insecure.

The second and probably the most important source of Ethiopian trade had been the kingdom of Enarya. It is difficult to identify when the kingdom of Enarya became part of the Christian state. Although the sources are obscure, Enarya ‘is mentioned in the praise songs of Emperor Yishaq (r. 1413–1429) as one of the tributary kingdoms of paying in gold’ (Guluma, 1996). However, it is only in the last quarter of the sixteenth century that we have clear historical evidence which confirms the relationship between the kingdom of Enarya and the Christian state. In 1586 and 1596, Emperor Särṣä Dəngəl carried out two apparently peaceful expeditions to the kingdom of Ennarya. Following the emperor’s advent to the region, during the second expedition, the ruler of Enarya called Bädančo was baptized. The ruler’s baptism resulted in the strengthening of the relationship between Enarya and the Christian state. Hereafter, Enarya became a tributary to the Christian state that paid a huge amount of Gold, and thereby the source of items of trade seems to have been secured (Huntingford, 1989; Nosnitsin, 2010).

After the fourth decade of the seventeenth century, the relationship between Enarya and the Christian kingdom had already been cut-off. Hence, the Kingdom of Enarya had to defend itself from the rapidly expanding Oromo, but it failed to do so. In the second half of the seventeenth century, therefore, the Enayra had lost most of its agricultural land east of the Didesa River to the expanding Oromo. Eventually, it was annihilated by the Oromo, and the settlement of the Oromo became apparent in the Enarya region.⁵ This in turn seems to have affected the post-medieval Ethiopian trade until the establishment of Oromo monarchial states in the region, which contributed to the revival of trade in the early nineteenth century.

The Christian state traders’ access to the southwestern region of Ethiopia was, therefore, highly dependent on the relations between the Christian kingdom and the Oromo of the region. In the times of good relations, the traders had gone deep into the interior of the southwestern region, and they had freely conducted trading activities. On the other hand, in times of bad relations, it seems to have been difficult for the traders to penetrate and conduct trading activities in this region.

Our intention here is not to show that the relation between the Christian kingdom and its adjacent territories had been determining the trading activities in the region, rather it is to argue that the failure of the Christian state to control the origin of important export commodities affected the long distance trade. In turn, this affected the commercial sector from contributing to the growth of Ethiopian economy in the period understudy.

3.3. Uncertain access to the Sea

In dealing with the obstructions to the growth of trade in the history of medieval Ethiopia, it will be relevant to investigate medieval Ethiopia’s access to the sea. It was because the state’s direct access to coastal areas would have had great relevance for the prosperity of international trade. Following the decline of the kingdom of Meroe in the first century AD, for instance, the Aksumite state had become in control of the coastal areas of the Red Sea, and the Aksumite state began to collect a significant amount of income from the Red Sea trade after establishing the famous port of Adulis (Dombrowski, 1984). It was this Red Sea trade that helped the Aksumite state to become strong and prosperous. The decline of the Aksumite state was also even associated with the loss of its control over the Red Sea trade. It was following the rise of Islam and the subsequent Muslim Arabs’ dominance over the Red Sea region around the seventh century AD (Ibid; Curtis, 2003).

This ancient Ethiopian state’s experience shows that a certain state’s direct access to the coastal areas had great relevance for the growth and prosperity of trade in particular and the accumulation of wealth for the state in general. The direct access of the medieval Ethiopia state to the coastal areas would have had its impact on the growth of trade in the region in the period. The following discussion will help us (a) to understand how much direct access to the coast would have been relevant for the growth and prosperity of trade and (b) to comprehend the impact of inaccessibility to the coasts on the growth and prosperity of the trade.

While the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia was strengthening itself under the newly restored Solomonic dynasty, the trading activities of the Ethiopian region were dominated by different Muslim principalities of the east and the southeast. The major source of conflict between the Christian state and these Muslim principalities was even to control the trade and trade routes that were linked with the Port of Zӓyla in the Gulf of Aden coast. Since the Christian state did not have direct access to the Gulf of Aden coast, the state carried out its trade through the proxy of a different Muslim merchant. The conflict with these states had emanated from occasional blockades of the Christian state’s trading agents by the Muslim rulers (Taddesse, 1972). Although Emperor Amdӓ-Ṣəyon and his successor were able to defeat and make these Muslim rulers their subjects, did not have secured the Christian state’s direct access to the coast and the trading activities in the region. Nevertheless, It was only Emperor Zӓr’a Ya’ǝqob who could directly control the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea coasts⁶ (Dombrowski, 1984).

To sustain the state’s control over the coastal areas, mainly over the Red Sea coasts, and to ensure free trade, Zӓr’a Ya’əqob created the Ethiopian office of Bahǝr nӓgaš (ruler of the sea). This enabled the Christian state to possess part of the Red Sea coast including the ports of Massawa and Arqiqo and to reopen trade with India and even China via Aden that continued until the wars of Imam Ahmӓd in the first half of the sixteenth century (Ibid). Before the attempt of Emperor Zӓr’a Ya’əqob to control the Red Sea region, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden coasts were under the influences of the Mamluks and possibly of the Yemenis (Pankhurst, 2002).

At the dawn of the sixteenth century, there had been very fierce rivalries between the Ottoman Turks and the Portuguese to monopolize the trade of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean coastal areas. The Christian state had a positive attitude towards the Portuguese’s presence and influence in the aforementioned regions mainly due to the coalition of the Ottoman Turks and the Muslim sultanate of Adal, which were considered a threat to the survival of the Christian state of Ethiopia. It is even said that Emperor Ləbnӓ Dəngəl himself had invited the Portuguese to occupy and fortify the ports of Massawa and Zӓyla (Merid, 1980). These political and economic rivalries between the Portuguese and the Ottoman Turks had also forced them to join the old-aged conflict between the Christians and the Muslims in favor of their religious affiliates. This enabled the Christian-Muslim conflict in the Ethiopian region to take an international dimension (Abir, 1980).

After the devastating wars of Imam Ahmed against the Christian kingdom in the first half of the sixteenth century and the subsequent Oromo population movement, the power of the Christian state began to decline and its influence over the coastal areas was also shrinking. In the meantime, the power of the Ottomans was growing in the region, and they controlled the port of Massawa in 1557. The landing Ottomans⁷ at Massawa became a threat to the Christian state, for the Ottomans had also plans of controlling the interior plateau of the Christian state in addition to strengthening their stronghold over the coastal areas (Ibid).

Having strengthened their control over the Red Sea region, the Ottomans continued to have benefited from the trade of the Red Sea coast and its environs. Although the Turkish influence could not be completely removed from the Red Sea region, Sӓrṣӓ Dəngəl had defeated them around 1578, and ‘limited their presence a Na’ib (“deputy”) in Ḥərgigo [Arqiqo], a local chief who, during the next three centuries, symbolized the rather abstract Ottoman claim to the African coast of the Red Sea’ (Erlich-Red, 2010).

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, King Susenyos succeeded in forcing the Pasha of Suakin and his vassal at Massawa to come to terms with the agreement. In their agreement, Susenyos secured permission ‘to send his agents through Massawa as far as India, with the free passage of person and baggage’ (Dombrowski, 1984). Even after the coming of Fasilӓdӓs, who broke the relationship with Europe, the Christian state maintained good terms with these Muslim rulers and strengthened trade mainly until the end of the seventeenth century. The na’ib of Arqiqo had been affecting Ethiopia’s international trade for a long period. Particularly, with the weakening of the Christian state in the eighteenth century, the na’ib had a great influence on Ethiopia’s contact with the outside world either in commerce or in diplomacy (Pankhurst, 1961; Chojnacki, 1961).

Generally, in most of the period covered by this study, the Christian state had limited direct access to the sea. This limited access of the Christian state to ports and coastal areas did not seem to have emanated from the rulers’ military incapability or the supremacy of the outsiders rather it was from their negligence to maintain interests of directly controlling ports and coastal areas. For example, being unaware of the commercial and military importance of ports, Emperor Ləbnӓ Dəngəl is said to have invited the Portuguese to occupy and fortify the ports of Massawa and Zӓyla. Similarly, as Merid has explored, ‘Särṣä Dəngəl and Susenyos could have easily dislodged the Turks from Arqiqo and, if they had encouraged some of the foreign craftsmen in their courts to make boats, probably from Massawa itself’. Even at the end of the seventeenth century, ‘Massawa had become politically a no man’s land’, but the Ethiopian rulers were still indifferent to control of the ports and the coastal areas as well. Barely understanding the relevance of accessibility to coastal areas, therefore, ‘these rulers showed supreme indifference when first Mamluks, Turkish and Portuguese and later Egyptian, French and English vessels were taking turns in sailing up and down the Red Sea and trying to occupy the major ports’ (Merid, 1984b).

3.4. A Shift in the diplomacy of the state and limited diversity in the items of trade

The diplomacy of the Christian state was changed in favor of the Muslim world after the coming of Fasilӓdӓs to power in 1632. King Fasilӓdӓs was engaged in an agreement with the Muslim rulers of the Red Sea area to prevent the coming of Europeans to the interior of the Ethiopian region. This move of Fasilӓdӓs completely separated Ethiopia’s relationship with Europe (Salvadore, 2012). This would have inevitably affected the development of Ethiopian trade by detaching Ethiopia from the commercially prospering Europeans. Thereby Ethiopia’s relationship with the Europeans seems to have been blocked until the revival of Europeans’ interest in the Red Sea region in the first half of the nineteenth century.

The commodities that had been exported and imported did not seem to have been diversified. The main reason behind the limited diversification of Ethiopian imports and exports was the excessive engagement of the ruling classes in trading activities. Most of the imports and exports of Ethiopia seem to have been monopolized by emperors and warlords. Hence, most of the commodities were imported and exported by the will of the ruling classes. This unreserved involvement of the ruling classes had possibly affected the exchanges of important commodities that would bring prosperity to the commercial sector and the socio-economic life of the society as well. Unfortunately, the imports and exports remained to the interests and the benefits of the upper class (Merid, 1984b).

There were a limited number of commodities that had been exported in international trade. The export was confined to a few natural products like slaves, ivory, gold, and the like (Merid, 1988). This limited variety of exporting commodities seems to have narrowed the competition at the international trade conducted along the Red Sea and probably the Indian Ocean. If sufficient quantities of agricultural products had been available in Ethiopia, they would have gained opportunities of getting wider international markets for these products.

However, the quantities of agricultural products mainly that could be sold at international markets were very limited. For instance, in the early sixteenth-century Portuguese mission, as explored by Merid, the ambassador Dom Rodrigo de Lima had come up with an instruction for identifying different agricultural and mineral products that could be exported to Portugal. Nevertheless, although there had been different herbs and spices grown in Ethiopia, the mission had found the quantities too limited. For example, different agricultural products like ginger, cardamom, black cumin seeds, onions, and garlic were grown in Ethiopia, but their quantities could not satisfy the Portuguese interest (Beckingham & Huntingford, 1961). Moreover, in the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries, there were different spices like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmegs which revolutionized world trade and even benefited the Indonesian, Indian, and Portuguese princes. However, the presence of these spices in Ethiopia could be noticed by neither Alvarez nor the Jesuits (Merid, 1986). Therefore, for a long period, Ethiopian export items had been limited to a few commodities. These commodities included, as we mentioned earlier, slaves, gold, ivory, civet musk, later coffee, and other cereals and fruits with limited quantities (Merid, 1988).

Similarly, the imports of Ethiopia in most of the period covered by this study had also been influenced by the ruling classes. The imports of the Ethiopian long distance trade were confined to the interests of the ruling and the clerical elites. Most of the imports were luxury goods, firearms, and the like. Among the luxury goods, textiles took the largest share. Different kinds of expensive silk clothes, beautifully colored vestments, umbrellas, and ornamental carpets had been imported for the nobility and the higher clerical elites. Furthermore, particularly since the sixteenth century, the kings and the nobilities had been engaged in the import of different kinds of firearms following the recurring conflicts that characterized the Ethiopian region. The biggest problem here was that the ruling classes had failed to import relevant trading commodities that could improve their way of life in society. They had also scarcely attempted to make arrangements for the production of luxurious commodities or weapons at home rather than importing from abroad (Merid, 1984a; Pankhurst, 2010).

3.5. Absence of currency

The Ethiopian economy had long been moneyless since the decline of Aksum and the subsequent disappearance of coins probably in the mid of the eighth century. As Taddesse noted, ‘the Aksumite kings seem to have stopped issuing coins towards the middle of the eighth century’ (Taddesse, 1972). In most of the medieval period, the economy of Ethiopia had thus continued to be moneyless. No coinage had been minted in this period, and few foreign currencies were serving in Ethiopia. Consequently, the local transaction had long been dependent on bartering and on some primitive money such as salt and international trade employed some foreign currencies (Abir, 1980).

Hence, with the decline of the domestic coined money in Ethiopia, barter trading had become common. Mainly local transactions were conducted through barter trading by exchanging a certain good for another. Different kinds of ‘primitive’ money were used to facilitate commercial activities in Ethiopia. The prominent ‘primitive’ money used as a principal medium of exchange was a salt bar (amole in Amharic), and it had been used for a long period even before and after the period covered by this study. Similarly, different articles such as a piece of cotton cloth, iron bars, plowshares, spears- and narrow-heads, glass, and the like had also been used as a medium of exchanges mainly for local transactions. It was only Harӓr, which could produce its own coined money in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, the quantity was very limited, and its scope of influence in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden trade seems to have been minimal (Hahn, 2003; Pankhurst, 1963).

Although their quantity seems to have been very limited, different foreign currencies were serving in the Ethiopian trade. It was related to the existence of different foreign traders who were active in Ethiopian international trade. Dinars and other Egyptian coins, Venetian Ducats, and Austrian coins had been used at important larger markets of Ethiopia. It was only in the late period of the eighteenth century that international money called Maria Theresa Thaler began to be infiltrated into the Ethiopian region. This currency continued to serve as a principal medium of exchange until the beginning of the twentieth century. Moreover, gold had also used as a principal medium of exchange in the international trade of Ethiopia in the period covered by this study. Measured by an ounce (or wӓqét), gold had served in facilitating the commercial activities of the Ethiopian region for a long period (Pankhurst, 1961; 1963)

It will be important here to discuss the impact that had been brought by the absence of domestically produced coined money on the development of trade in the Ethiopian region in the period covered by this study. Although trade could be conducted through bartering and using primitive money, like the aforementioned articles, money would have a principal purpose, an economic system, of facilitating the exchange of goods and services by lessening the time and effort required to carry on trade. As it is explored by Lester V. Chandler, there are around four specific functions of money: ‘a unit of value, a medium of exchange, a standard of deferred payment, and a store of value’ (Chandler, 1959).

Hence the absence of coined money in Ethiopia in the period covered by this study or beyond seems to have brought considerable obstructions to the economy of Ethiopia in general and the trade in particular. For example, if we start from the first function of money, a unit of value, it will become clear to understand how common the measurement of the value of goods and services difficult was, due to the absence of coined money in the economy of medieval Ethiopia.

Moreover, most of the tributes of the state had been submitted in kind, and this shows how the absence of coined money had made the collection and the subsequent accumulation of wealth very cumbersome. The payment of tribute and to laborers in kind had inevitably been because of the absence of coined money in the country. It was also partly the absence of coined money that seems to have hampered the accumulation of wealth and the subsequent formation of working capital in Ethiopia in the period covered by this study.

Above all, serving as a medium of exchange is another important function of money, and this function is very close to commercial activities, for trade is all about the exchange of goods and services. The absence of coined money in Ethiopia greatly affected the exchange of goods and services both in local and international trade. As discussed above, most of the local exchanges had been conducted through bartering or using ‘primitive’ money and this would inevitably affect the transactions at local markets. Similarly, the absence of coined money had also been impeding Ethiopia’s international trade transactions through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden coast, and even in the inland port of Mӓttӓma to Sudan. It was mainly due to the reluctance of foreign merchants to accept the Ethiopian medium of exchange. For instance, gold had been long used as a medium of exchange in international trade. However, there were various occasions in which merchants were refusing to accept Ethiopian gold because of impurity (Pankhurst, 1961).

Generally, the absence of domestically coined money seems to have affected the prosperity of the Ethiopian economy for a long period. Since the locally used ‘primitive’ money was not comfortable, the absence of coined money seems to have discouraged the accumulation of wealth and thereby capital formation. More specifically, the absence of money seems to have greatly endangered the prosperity of commercial activities by depriving a standardized medium of exchange.

4. Conclusion

Trade has been one of the most important economic activities which have been practiced in the Ethiopian region and the Horn of Africa, as it has been in the rest of the world. Records of the period reveal that trade played a significant role in the creation and strengthening of different states in the region since ancient times. For instance, the kingdom of Aksum reached its apogee, between the fourth and seventh centuries, following its control of the Red Sea trade and the subsequent amassing of income from it. The decline of Aksum was even associated with the rise of Islam and its control of the Red Sea trade. After the decline of Aksum, partly shifting its outlet to the Gulf of Aden coast, the trade seemed to have revived since the thirteenth century. In addition to the Christian states, the Zagwe, and the Christian highland kingdoms, that came after the decline of Aksum, different Muslim states in the east and southeast had flourished using trade as an important instrument of existence.

Although it brought a considerable amount of income for these states of the region on various occasions, trade had been challenged by different factors. The discussions in this paper have pointed out factors such as the negative attitude of the Christian society towards trade; the state’s limited control over the origins of items of trade; the state’s uncertain access to the sea; limited diversity in the items of trade and absence of currency had been affecting the prosperity of trade in the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. Nevertheless, the present article does not confine the limited growth of trade in the medieval Christian kingdom of Ethiopia to the aforementioned factors; rather it has reasonably recommended further historical research on the possible factors that affected the growth and prosperity of trade in the period under study or beyond.

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Notes on contributors

Mengistie Zewdu Tessema

Mengistie Zewdu Tessema is a lecturer of History and Heritage Management at the Department of History and Heritage Management, College of Social Science and Humanities, Woldia University, Ethiopia. He completed his BA and MA degrees from Debre Berhan University, Ethiopia. He has published several articles in reputable international journals. His main research interests include Ethiopian History, Heritage Studies, Tourism Studies, Economic History and Cultural Economics.

Wondemeneh Adera Ayalew

Wondemeneh Adera Ayalew is a lecturer of History and Heritage Management at the Department of History and Heritage Management, College of Social Science and Humanities, Woldia University, Ethiopia. He completed his BA and MA degrees in History from Arba Minch and Bahir Dar Universities respectively. His research interests include Ethiopian History, History of Ideas, Philosophy of History and Economic History.

Notes

1 The exact time when the Zagwe rulers took the power from the weak Aksumite kings has been controversial. As Butzer discussed, ‘by 800, Aksum had almost ceased to exist’. Some others argue that the transition took place in the mid of the eleventh century. See Sergew Hable Sellassie. 1972. Ancient and medieval Ethiopian history to 1270. Haile Selassie I University Press, Addis Ababa.

2 Some pieces of evidence, like the Periplus of Erythrean Sea, provide us information about the trading activities that had been conducted in the Ethiopian region and the Red Sea area since the beginning of the first century AD (Dombrowski, 1984; Fiaccadori, 2010). Very secured and protected trade had been conducted during the Aksumite period through the port of Adulis, and a significant portion of income was collected by the rulers from this trade (Abir, 1968a). Even after the decline of Aksum, trade continued, on different occasions, to bring significant amount of income for rulers of different states of the region that came later.

3 We can comprehend that the trade of the eastern Ethiopian region would have inevitably been conducted through this port. Yet the role of the port in facilitating the trade of the interior Ethiopian region had continued to be minimal.

4 In fact, according to Ludolf, the dominant merchants of Ethiopian trade during his time, the seventeenth century, were the Armenians, and the Muslim merchants come next.

5 With regard to this, the Ph.D. theses of Guluma Gemeda and Tesema Ta’a are relevant to see. Guluma Gemeda (1996, pp. 49–56). According to Tessema Ta’a, the expansion, and resettlement, of the Limmu Oromo into the kingdom of Enarya had been conducted in the second half of the sixteenth century. See Tessema Ta’a (1986).

6 Although Emperor Zӓr’a Ya’eqob was able to ensure direct control over the Red Sea coast and the trade around it, by establishing the office of the Bahǝr nӓgaš (ruler of the sea), it was difficult to restore the Aksumite supremacy over the region.

7 The Ottomans’ plan of controlling the interior plateau since the late period of the sixteenth century after they realized the difficulty of controlling the interior and partly due to their defeat by the force of Emperor Sӓrṣӓ-Dəngəl in the meantime.