Slave trade in Rwanda

The majority of historians affirm that the trade of slaves did not reach Rwanda. Others say that it happened but it was not practiced openly. Some maintain that the attempts of Arabs and strangers to penetrate the country were relentlessly repulsed. However, there is evidence that in the case of raids, and famines, starved parents gave up their children as slaves. The British explorer H.M.Stanley (1841-1904) attempted to enter in Rwanda in 1876 but he was stopped in his enterprise by the hostile attitude of the population. In his book, the historian Bernard Lugan mentions that Stanley reported that:

An Arab trader named Hamed informed him that Rwandans never allowed Arabs to enter in their country. Hamed and Habib had often tried to enter into Rwanda but in vain. Arabs kept this in their memory; the caravan of ivory traders never came back after once failed attempting to enter in Rwanda. In addition, Muhammad, the brother of Tippo Tip, also tried to penetrate into Rwanda and his 600 weapon rifles didn't serve him to anything.²⁵⁷

This is to confirm that the systematic organized trade of slavery did not reach Rwanda.

2.4.1. The Institution of Ubuhake

Ubuhake is a name given to the social order in Rwanda and Burundi from approximately the 15th century to 1958. It has been frequently compared to European feudalism, based on cattle distribution.²⁵⁸ First European explorers, missionaries, and some authors have compared the institution of Ubuhake with the feudal regimes of Middle Ages in Europe where there was a dominating class of Tutsi lords and a dominated class of Hutu serfs.²⁵⁹ Gérard Prunier defines Ubuhake as a form of unequal clientship contract entered into by two men, the shebuja, patron and umugaragu, client, was a form of quasi-slavery enabling the Tutsi master to exploit the poor

257 Olivier N.M., Chrétiens et Musulmans pour une coexistence pacifique au Rwanda, Thesis at Theology Faculty of

Butare, 2002, p.6.

258 Ubuhake, <http://www.mediander.com/connects/3698632/ubuhake/#!/p3/topic/-/>, 18th March 2016.

259 Josias Semujanga, Ibid, p.122.

downtrodden Hutu.²⁶⁰ It means a system by which Tutsi lords exploited Hutu clients through inequitable cow or land rental.²⁶¹ R.W. Beachey shows also that Tutsis dominated Hutus through the Institution of Ubuhake.²⁶² Very recently in 2013 in the court, „Dr Léon Mugesera‟²⁶³ said that in the Rwanda kingdom when you said „Umuhutu wawe‟ meaning your Muhutu man, it signifies that the Muhutu is your slave.²⁶⁴

“Rwandan school books represented the contract of Ubuhake as a shape disguised of slavery which benefited the owner cowhands, the Tutsis. In other words, it was a form of slavery of Tutsi against Hutus.”²⁶⁵ That is why some historical writings said that Ubuhake was a feudal system that existed in Rwandan society, under which an inferior party, generally a Hutu, provided services to a superior party, usually a Tutsi, in exchange for protection.²⁶⁶ Other authors went far as saying that Hutu were slaves of the Tutsis. Dominique Mbonyumutwa, first president of Rwanda says that Ubuhake “is a form of slavery exploitation.”²⁶⁷ This form of understanding slavery became an ideology which has been repeated and emphasized during several years by the Rwandan Hutu politicians.

For Louis Jaspers, a Belgian colonial administrator of Rwanda, it is an exaggeration to use the word “slavery” in relation to Rwanda. He admits that there was a service to one another but the advantage of the system was taken by the “Shebuja” meaning „patron‟ in Kinyarwanda.²⁶⁸ He asserts that from the definition of the word slavery, slaves do not have freedom and identity. A

260 Gérard Prunier, Ibid, p.13.

261 James Gasana, New hope for Rwanda, <http://webpages.charter.net/jabdmb/Gasanaenglish.pdf>, 03rd December 2012.

262 R.W. Beachey, The slave trade of Eastern Africa, Rex Collings, London, 1976, p.182.

263 Léon Mugesera was deported from Canada, he is accused for crimes against humanity because of his inflammatory anti-Tutsi speech in 1992.

264 Faustin Nkurunziza, Mugesera arasaba ko amategeko ahindurwa, urubanza rwe rugahinduka,

<http://www.igihe.com/amakuru/u-rwanda/mugesera-arasaba-ko-amategeko-ahindurwa-urubanza-rwe- rugakomeza.html>, 12th February 2013.

265 Eric Mutabazi, Les enjeux des nouvelles valeurs dans l’enseignement de l’histoire du Rwanda après le Genocide, <https://plone2.unige.ch/aref2010/symposiums-longs/coordinateurs-en-h/nouvelles-demandes-sociales-et-valeurs- portees-par-l2019ecole/Les%20enjeux%20des%20nouvelles%20valeurs.pdf,> 25th November 2012.

266 Prehistoric Rwanda, <http://www.go2africa.com/rwanda/african-safari-guide/history>, 02nd December 2012.

267 Dominique Mbonyumutwa, Le Rwanda social et politique avant 1959,

<http://www.dominiquembonyumutwa.info/pages/le-rwanda-social-et-politique-avant-1959.html>, 25th November 2012.

268 Ruhumuza Mbonyumutwa, Rwanda-50 ans d’indépendance: récit de Louis Jaspers, Administrateur colonial, <http://hungryoftruth.blogspot.com/2012/07/par-ruhumuza-mbonyumutwa-jambo-news-7.html>, 25th November 2012.

slave is the property of someone else. He can be sold at any moment. To clarify it, Alexandre Kimenyi, Professor of Linguistics, Ethnic Studies and African Languages at California State University, writes that:

The institution of Ubuhake was used by offering one's services to somebody to receive cows from him. Called „feudalism‟ by Europeans, it was not seen as being necessarily bad by Rwandans because it was the only way at that time that one could accumulate wealth. Cows had a very important value in the Rwandan society and represented wealth. Ubuhake was also the only schooling system that existed.

269

The institution of Ubuhake was a highly personalized relationship involving reciprocal bonds of loyalty and exchange of goods and services. In the system, “patrons were mostly Tutsis but the client could be Hutu or Tutsi of inferior social status. One person could be a client as well as a patron. Even Tutsi patrons of Hutu could be clients of yet another Tutsi.”²⁷⁰ The Tutsis possessed land and wealth that was mainly livestock. The expectation of the Hutu was to have a cow, a sign of wealth, and to fix a contract with the breeder that could be summarized like this: “I give you a cow but in counterpart, you are on my service, you must work in my household to maintain the coffee plantation.” ²⁷¹ It is in that way, the contract was viewed in Rwandan society. At the end, the institution of Ubuhake as a system was officially abolished on 15^th April 1954 by king Mutara III Rudahigwa.²⁷²

The double presence of the colonizers and the Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda in the 20^th century through White Fathers begins to strongly shake this Rwandan institution, but without affecting the daily life of the population.²⁷³ According to the White Fathers, “Tutsi feudalism

269 Alexandre Kimenyi quoted Jacques Macquet, The premise of inequality in Rwanda, London, Oxford University Press and Catherine Newbury, The cohesion of oppression : Clientship and ethnicity in Rwanda 1860-1960, New York, Columbia University Press, in Trivialization of Genocide, the case of

Rwanda,<http://kimenyi.com/trivilization-of- genocide-the-case-of-rwanda.php>, 02nd December 2012.

270 The international response to conflict and genocide. Lessons from the Rwanda experience, <http://www.grandslacs.net/doc/0741.pdf>, 03 December 2012.

271 Dominique Mbonyumutwa, Le Rwanda social et politique avant 1959, Ibid.

272 Rwanda: Iteka 1/54 ry’umwami Mutara III Rudahigwa rivanaho ubuhake,

<http://www.gakondo.com/2012/06/rwanda- iteka-154-ryumwami-mutara-iii-rudahigwa-rivanaho-ubuhake/>, 15th April 2013.

273 Dominique Mbonyumutwa, Ibid.

must collapse” ²⁷⁴, because the institutional system enslaved the majority of people. They worked on that purpose until 1959 when the Tutsi monarchy was replaced by Hutu revolution.

2.4.2. Slavery in Rwanda

There was no market known for slave trade in Rwanda. Déo Byanafashe, professor of History at the University of Rwanda noted that expect the sector of Save in Huye District this trade was allowed but on the sly because the king did not support the idea of the trade. “A true slave trade from the whole of Rwanda did not exist except in time of famine, when people sold their close relatives.”²⁷⁵ However, in her 1983 thesis, “Commerce des Exclaves au Rwanda 1890-1918”, Eugénie Mujawimana wrote, that there was a market of slaves in Rukira and Kivumu, in the East of Rwanda and she confirmed that “some slaves who were exported from Rwanda, were liberated by the White Fathers in Tabora, Tanzania before reaching the Arab market of Zanzibar.”²⁷⁶Most of them were children and women.

Bernard Lugan, in his book “La Traite de Noirs sous le Régime Allemand 1896-1916” affirms the existence of slave trade but not at the same level as it was the case in Zanzibar. According to other writings of White Fathers; “in the centre of the country, Rwanda was being devastated by the slave trade, the total number of victims reaching 20.000-25.000 per year.”²⁷⁷ According to Jean Pierre Chrétien, “the Catholic Church clearly used all its networks to put pressure on the government in Berlin to work more efficiently against slavery.”²⁷⁸ At the end of Rwabugiri‟s reign in 1895, there were black people allowed to enter in Rwanda for doing business, beside Arabs from Zanzibar. He perceived that this slave trade was denounced by the arriving of the Germans in Rwanda.²⁷⁹ But “the real European who denounced deeply the „zanzibarist slavery‟²⁸⁰ and their networks in the African continent was “David Livingstone.”²⁸¹ His

274 Josias Semujanga, Ibid, p.122.

275 Henri Médard &Shane Doyle, Ibid, p.216.

276 Eugénie Mujawimana, Commerce des esclaves au Rwanda 1890-1990, UNR, 1983, p.52.

277 Henri Médard &Shane Doyle, Ibid, p.214.

278 Ibid, p.215.

279 Emmanuel N. Hitimana, Abanyamateka bemeza ko ubucuruzi bw’abacakara bwageze no mu Rwanda rwihishwa, <www.igihe.com/spip.php?article15662>, 26th August 2011.

280 Zanzibar is an island in the Indian ocean where trade of slaves in east Africa was established.

281 David Livingstone was a Scottish missionary, medical doctor, explorer and anti slavery campaigner in his book “Missionary travels and researches in south Afica”, 1857.

different reports and stories provoked “a storm of protests and allowed the process of creation of anti-slavery movements in Europe.”²⁸² The first missions of private organizations against slave trade started to be sent into the region, including the White Fathers at the end of nineteen century. In 1867 one of the kings, Kabaka Mwanga (1884-1897) of Uganda, was converted in Islam. This was unacceptable to White Fathers who were already present in Uganda. Later, the conversion originated interreligious killings and tensions in the entire region between Christians and Muslims.