Black intellectuals and activists in the Americas rejected the idea of slavery existing in Ethiopia: Ethiopia, the beacon of Pan-Africanism and the archetype of many black identities could not be a slave society. 83 Sla very must belong only to European imperialism and the American plantations, and not to this territory, royalty, and lineage enshrined in the Bible. Following that logic, Ethiopia, a state that promoted and hosted the foundation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963, could not be associated with issues of servitude and exclusion. Even in the 1980s, when a military junta ruled the Ethiopian state, the Därg gave much attention to the tyranny of the former regime, and radically transformed the system of land tenure, but the complexities of local slaving societies were overshadowed by the “national question” and the liberation of cultures from the feudal order. Class distinctions as well as political afffijiliations obstructed the discussion on slavery. Ethiopian intellectuals, who have so often been at the forefront of social and political change, seem to be still refusing the idea that slavery