Cyber Ethiopia

This on-going series of articles presents excerpts from historically interesting accounts of Ethiopian markets, and merchants, as seen over the centuries. mainly by foreign observers. Our knowledge of the trade of old-time Gondar owes much to the writings of the eighteenth century Scottish traveller James Bruce, as embedded in his classic Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, which was published in Edinburgh in 1790. The Import-Export Trade at Massawa Discussing the import-export trade of the Red Sea port of Massawa, which then, as earlier and later, handled the bulk of Ethiopia's foreign trade, Bruce observes: "There is a considerable deal of trade carried on at Mafuah [Massawa]... Imports "The goods imported from the Arabian side [of the Red Sea] are blue cotton, Surat cloths [i.e. cloths from Surat

in India], and cochineal ditto [i.e. from Surat], called Kermis, fine cloth from different markets in India; coarse white cotton cloths from Yemen; cotton unspun from ditto [Yemen] in bales; Venetian beads, crystal, drinking, and looking-glasses; and cohol, or crude antimony". The three last articles came, Bruce explains, "in great quantities" from Cairo, first in the ships which transported such goods to Jeddah, in Arabia, and then in smaller vessels sailing across the Red Sea to Massawa. "Old copper", according to Bruce, was another import article, a "great quantity" of which was imported, and yielded to the merchants handling it "much" profit. It was used in the local manufacture of jewellery, etc. Exports Bruce also listed Ethiopia's principal exports passing through Massawa. They consisted of gold, civet, ivory, wax, myrrh, coffee, and honey. These exports, and particularly the gold, ivory, civet and "other precious commodities", were at that time being exported to Arabia by Ras Mika'el Sehul, the ruler of Tigray. In return, he received large quantities of fire-arms, which, Bruce explains, ensured his dominant position in the country. (Power, as Chairman Mao said, springs from the barrel of a gun!). Trade in the Interior Turning to the trade of the interior, Bruce explains that: "There is no current coin in Abyssinia. Gold is paid by weight; all the revenues are chiefly paid in kind, viz. oxen, sheep, and honey, which are the greatest necessaries of life. As for luxuries, they are obtained by a barter of gold, myrrh, coffee, elephants teeth [in fact ivory], and a variety of other articles which are carried over to Arabia; and in exchange for there is brought back whatever is commissioned". Trade, at this time, was, as we saw last week, largely in the hands of Muslim merchants, then generally known as gibbertis. Elaborating on the role of such traders, who were in many cases closely attached to the Ethiopian emperor and other members of the political hierarchy, Bruce goes on: "Every great man in Abyssinia has one of these Gibbertis for his factor. [or trade agent]. The king has many, who are commonly the shrewdest and most intelligent of their profession". Armenians and Greeks Armenians and Greeks, Bruce explains, also carried out trade for Ethiopian rulers. Recalling the case of Matthew, believed to have been an Armenian, who traded in the early sixteenth century on behalf of Empress Eleni, the Scotsman wrote that this individual was "a person of great trust and discretion", at the Ethiopian court, who had: "been long accustomed to go to the several kingdoms of the East upon mercantile commissions for the king and for his nobles. He had been at Cairo, Jerusalem, Ispaphan, and in the East Indies on the coast of Malabar... He was one of those factors which... are employed by the king and great men in Abyssinia to sell or barter, in the places above mentioned, such part of their revenue as are paid them in kind". Elaborating on the commercial role of such Greek or Armenian "factors", Bruce declares: "These men are chiefly Greeks, or Armenians, but the preference is always given to the latter. Both nations pay caratch, or capitation, to the Grand Signior [i.e. the ruler of the Ottoman Empire], (whole subjects they are) and both have, in consequence, passports, protections, and liberty to trade wherever they please throughout the empire, without being liable to those insults and extortions from the Turkish officers that other foreigners are". "The Armenians, of all the people in the East, [Bruce continues] are those most remarkable for their patience and sobriety. They are generally masters of most of the eastern languages; are of strong, robust constitutions; of all people, the most attentive to the beasts and merchandise they have in charge; exceed­ingly faithful, and content with little". James Bruce The Story of the Glass Beads Bruce himself was no merchant: any suggestion to that effect he would have found grossly insulting. He did, however, engage in at least one commercial transaction, which is perhaps as instructive as it is amusing. He recalls that glass beads were in those days used as a an article of barter. - but adds that they were a "dangerous speculation", for using them: "You lose sometimes every thing, or gain more than honesty you should do; for all depends upon fashion; and the fancies of a brown, or black beauty there, gives the ton as decisively as does the example of the fairest in England". Elaborating, from his own experience, he continues: "To our great disappointment, the person employed to buy our beads at Jidda had not received the last list of fashions from this country; so he had bought us a quantity beautifully flowered with red and green, and as big as a large pea; also some large oval, green, and yellow ones; whereas the ton now among the beauties of Tigre were small sky-coloured blue beads; about the size of small lead shot, or seed pearls; blue bugles, and common white bugles, were then in demand, and large yellow glass, flat in the sides like the amber-beads formerly in use by the better sort of the old women-peasants in England. All our beads were then rejected, by six or seven dozen the shrillest tongues I ever heard. They decried our merchandize in such a manner, that I thought they meant to condemn them as unsaleable, to be confiscated or destroyed". When you want to sell, you must know what the market wants: Economics 101.