Country: Ethiopia

Group: Gumuz

Date: 11/21/2020

Team: Alexa Hager (lead), Arisha Khan, Thomas Chia

Content Warning: slavery

Approximate Time Period:1500-1942

The Gumuz in Ethiopia have faced forced labor and have been treated as slaves by other tribes over the last several centuries.  After the 19th century, there is a lack of information regarding the group and forced labor, therefore I will rate the information a 2.

The Gumuz ethnic, indigenous group makes up 1.14% of the Ethiopian population. Living in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Gumuz mainly reside in the Northern and Western portions of Ethiopia (Joshua Project, 2020).  The Gumuz were considered as slaves during the 16th to the 19th century as they faced oppression under the Turko Egyptian Empire, the Mahadist State in Sudan, and the Emperor Menelik in Ethiopia Ethiopia (Tiruneh, 2018; Engida 2015; Joshua Project, 2020).  The long-term imposition of forced labor may have prevented the group from developing and modernizing in Ethiopia (Joshua Project, 2020). Slavery did not disappear from Ethiopia until the 1940s. Descendants of the Gumuz people taken as slaves to the area just south of the Welkite were found to still be speaking the same language in 1984 (Wikipedia, 2020).

Although there is a large amount of evidence regarding their forced labor in those times, little peer-reviewed literature could be found regarding the group and forced labor in the country.

Sources

  1. Joshua Project (2020). Gumuz, Kamashi in Ethiopia. Retrieved November 13, 2020, from https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/11992/ET
  2. Wikipedia (n.d.), Gumuz people. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gumuz_people&oldid=988406199
  3. Tiruneh, Wondim (2018). Dynamics of inter-ethnic relations, peaceful co-existence, conflicts, and peace building mechanisms between the Gumuz and non-Gumuz communities (1961-1974). Journal of Philosophy, Culture and Religion 38 (2018): 17-31.
  4. Engida, A. E. (2015). Mapping the socio-cultural landscape of the Gumuz Community of Metekel, Northwestern Ethiopia. African Journal of History and Culture, 7(12), 209-218.