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Introduction
The legacy of slavery is a complex web of social relations based on historical dependency, inequality, and transmitted racial stereotypes. As an institution, slavery is undisputed in the history of Ethiopia but is overshadowed by discourses about social stratification and feudalism.1 Slaves are outsiders who are regarded as property within the owner society that sanctions their status by judicial or other means.2 The master theoretically has total control over the slaves, which deprives the slaves of their history and dignity. In this respect it is different from feudal master-serf relations, typical of the gäbbar-system,3 a prominent feature of the economic history of Ethiopia. The latter system was itself exploitative, yet it forced the landlord to provide a certain security against slave raiding from outside.4 It also tied the peasant to the land. As the Abyssinian Empire expanded into the southern peripheries, the people of the newly conquered lands were subjected to its feudal order. If the peasants were unable to pay their tribute, sometimes the landlord would also take children in return. 5 Therefore there is a line between feudalism and slavery in the Ethiopian context but to juxtapose "freedom" and "un-freedom" is insufficient to describe the difference between the two.6 As in other African contexts various terms describe the knotty variations of the systems of dominance and subjugation within the slavery complex.7 Especially in Ethiopia, with her historically highly diverse tenure systems, questions of tenure and production have to be analyzed in their local context. Hence modes of production and systems of subjection differ in different areas. While the modes of production of the Ethiopian highlands received much attention, the same topics have received considerably lesser analysis in the southern provinces.
The Ethiopian-Sudanese borderlands have been heavily affected by slavery and all groups experienced slavery in one form or another. 8 Understanding the regional complexities of slavery and the trade in slaves will place the present-day intergroup relations in their historical context of power relations.
In Ethiopia today, descendants of former slaves have received recognition and visibility in the political framework of "ethnic federalism" and have experienced reconfiguration of their identity.9 It is noteworthy though that it is their "ethnic identity" and not necessarily a slave identity that is being recognized. While slaves...