How many of us can summarize Eritrea under Fascism? No more than a few, I suspect. In fact, I am sure that at least one person who reads this post will be unaware that Eritrea was under Fascism at all.

This unknowingness is easy to understand: the Fascists in Eritrea simply were not in the habit of committing obvious atrocities (with one important outlier) like massacres or imprisonments in concentration camps, as in Ethiopia, Libya, or Yugoslavia. Instead, the ways in which the Fascists oppressed Eritreans were often far subtler.

Since I am guessing that most of us know very little about this subject, this thread aims to fill in that gap. I’ll mostly be quoting from Tekeste Negash’s Italian Colonialism in Eritrea, 1882–1941, one of the few books on this subject, for this purpose, and I’ll try to keep this post at a manageable length.

Trade

Imports from Italy (most of which were probably for the colonists’ benefit) intensified under Fascism. Eritrea’s Italian imports numbered at 35,764 in 1920, before exploding into a massive 133,083 imports in 1925. It did decline to 89,731 in 1930, but what’s interesting is that that number is still greater than the imports of 1900, 1905, 1910, 1915, and 1920 combined.

Similarly, Eritrea’s exports to the fatherland proper numbered at 26,777 in 1920 before skyrocketing to 81,061 in 1925. The number declined to 42,687 in 1930 before ascending to 53,190 in 1934, almost more than half of the 1920 number. (Remember that the Great Depression started in 1929.)

From the modest scale of the colony’s exports inherited by the Italians, the growth of the import/export trade as expressed in annual statistical reports appears rather striking. In 1900, Eritrea exported 2.8 million lire worth of products, while by 1933 exports had climbed to 62 million lire. From a little over nine million lire in 1900, imports jumped to the level of 177 million lire.

[…]

The sharp increase in exports from 1924 onwards, when compared with the 1915–24 period, was largely based on coffee imports from Arabia, which were immediately exported to Italy. The increase was also due to Eritrea’s position as an outlet for the Ethiopian import/export trade. Coffee exports, which never exceeded one million lire per annum until 1922, jumped to 26 million in 1924 and reached a peak of 33 million in 1928.

In most years between 1924 and 1933 the import/export figure contained an average of 50 million lire which had virtually nothing to do with the Eritrean economy. Moreover, the aggregate import/export figure does not in any way take into consideration the inflation of the lire.

Eritrea was Fascism’s most profitable colony in 1930, but even so the colonial economists considered this an underperformance. No matter: it sufficed as a dépôt of transit trade.

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Pictured: Coral salesmen at an Eritrean port.

Employment

While there was a capitalist sector, its spread was both slow and uneven:

In order to increase primitive accumulation Eritrean workers were offered precarious jobs and invariably low wages, thus compelling them to rely for survival on the pre‐capitalist economic system. […] The economic rôle of Eritreans was to perpetually supply labor for [Fascist] capital.

As far as the Eritreans were concerned, the colonial economy was a closed circuit where they could never aspire beyond the stage of selling their labour for wages, which were in turn so low that full proletarianization was virtually impossible.

[…]

As the colonial state kept labour costs to a level that would not discourage the inflow of capital, most of the Eritreans employed in the modern sector considered wages as supplementary to their main source of income. […] By providing salaried employment to between 10 and 15 per cent of the population, colonialism increased considerably the autonomy and independence of the colony against natural catastrophes, such as drought and famine.

Although it’s uneasy to say for sure, the number of Eritrean wage laborers in the economy’s productive sector during the 1930s probably ranged between 4,000 and 5,000, and they worked part‐time. This excludes Eritreans laboring outside of the colony, of which there were more than a few:

By 1939, more than 2,000 factories, chiefly operating with Eritrean laborers newly arrived from the surrounding countryside, produced everything from food and drug products (e.g., pasta, cooking oil, dried meat, and tobacco), to clothing (buttons and hides), to construction materials.

The Fascist war machine (or the economy’s destructive sector) was another story. Service might not have guaranteed citizenship, but it certainly guaranteed other privileges:

In so far as Eritreans were concerned, the colonial army had its own hierarchy, with promotion rewarded by higher salaries, privileges and a possible future post in the local colonial bureaucracy. Differences in salaries were based on rank and years of service.

Recruitment into the colonial army remained voluntary until the beginning of the 1930s, but once recruited the Eritrean soldier was obliged, if required, to go overseas. Soldiers sent to Libya were paid at double the rate of their normal pay in Eritrea.

The number of enlisted Eritreans, already in numbers as high as 10,000 in the liberal period, only intensified under Fascism:

Between May and the end of October of 1934, recruitment increased by 11,800, thus bringing the Eritrean colonial army to a total of 60,200 men.

General Visconti Prasca estimated that only 22,400 of these blokes received adequate training; 12,000 were poorly trained and another dozen thousand had no training at all. The issue for the Fascists, of course, was not the possible loss of many black lives, but winning the war.

Eritrea’s economy was closely tied to military recruitment:

That the recruitment of Eritreans to the colonial army ran counter to the economic interests of the colony can be illustrated by pointing out the British attitude to the problem during the Second World War.

In Ghana during the colonial period, the British worked under the assumption that they could not, without damaging the economy of the colony, recruit more than 2% of the total population or equivalent to about 9% of the active male labour force. In the Eritrean case, the [Fascists] had during the 1935–41 period a colonial army made up of about 40% of the active labour force.

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Pictured: Two uniformed blokes in front of a building, presumably a recruitment center.

Settlers

In 1931, there were 4,188 Italians. […] This ratio was complete changed from the early months of 1935 onwards. In a matter of a few months, Eritrea was transformed into a staging post and supply dépôt for the invading [Regio Esercito]. Between April 1935 and May 1936 more than 300,000 soldiers landed in Eritrea on their way to Ethiopia.

50,000 labourers arrived from [Fascist] Italy to tackle the enormous problems of transportation and accommodation. Eritrea became the nerve centre of the new empire [that] the [Fascists] were about to construct, and during the 1935–37 period the colonial economy gave way to a war economy.

[…]

In the ‘historic’ Eritrea (in contrast to the ‘New’ Eritrea created in 1936 with the incorporation of Tigrai) the Italian population increased from 4,600 in 1934 to nearly 75,000 in 1939. Eritrea had accommodated Italians, approximately 15% of the entire Eritrean population, which according to the unpublished census of 1939 was said to be 614,353.

[…]

Thus the [Fascist] colonization of Ethiopia turned Eritrea into a colony of settl[ers], composed of colonists whose income was derived from industrial and commercial capital rather than from small‐scale agriculture. Accounting for nearly 15% of the entire population, the Italians in Eritrea were in a far stronger position than settlers in other colonies such as Kenya, and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

The Fascists did not forcibly confiscate Eritreans’ lands, for a few reasons: it made colonial rule more tolerable, thereby preserving stability, and perhaps more importantly, the colony simply did not mature to the point where it needed to expand at others’ expense. Had Fascist colonialism survived a few decades longer, a classic policy of aggressive expansion would have been inevitable.

Some of you may be stunned to see a case of colonialism without aggressive expansion. Well, in 1889 and most of the 1890s there was a policy of confiscation and violent suppression of resistance, but conflict with Eritrea’s protectorate, Ethiopia, suspended this policy. This was another reason why the Fascist oppression of Eritrea was relatively subtle: the prefascist colonialists already took care of the dirty work.

The one inarguable atrocity that the Fascists did regularly commit in Eritrea was misogynist violence. Click here if you are willing to read about that.

Giulia Barrera’s Dangerous Liaisons: Colonial Concubinage in Eritrea, 1890–1941:

Presumably, some of the Eritrean women who were compelled to seek alternative means of self‐support suddenly found themselves in a position to meet the [Kingdom of Italy’s] demand for prostitutes, domestic servants, and madame.

[…]

Before becoming madame, some women were little more than children. Many Italian males had sailed to Eritrea dreaming of Africa as a “virgin land of virgins,” and at least some of them seemed determined to take full advantage of that. It appeared that for many men, possessing a young virgin was more gratifying than procuring a prostitute, as the quotation at the beginning of the first section implies. Furthermore, the customary marriage age in Eritrea rendered young girls accessible, whereas in Italy the marriage age was considerably higher.⁸⁵

[…]

Eritrean customary law, Pollera explained, authorized mothers to attribute paternity while Italian law did not. As a consequence, “many [colonists], taking advantage of Eritrean women’s ignorance in this regard, easily convinc[ed] them to become their concubines, and abandon[ed] them when they [had] a baby.”¹⁰⁵ Abandoned by their fathers, these children, Pollera continued, were likely to be shunned by their mothers’ families, who felt no responsibility to provide for them. Hence mother and child quickly sank into the deepest poverty.

[…]

Predictably, the defendants—all of whom were male, as already indicated—typically pleaded not guilty, often claiming that the African woman involved was either a prostitute or a servant who was occasionally required to perform sexual services. If judges found their claims credible, these men were free to go.

Such was the fate of a certain Mr. Russo in 1939. The Appeals Court of Addis Ababa made it clear that Russo considered the African woman who lived with him to be just “a humble servant.” It simply happened that being her boss, he sometimes “released his lustfulness on her.”¹⁵⁹ Circumstances like these were by no means unique. An Eritrean woman, Hiwet Ogba Georgis, recently recalled:

All domestic workers were afraid of being sexually attacked—that is why we always preferred houses with old people or with a lot of children. Italian men wouldremoved domestic workers and if they got pregnant they would kick them out and deny any connection with them.¹⁶⁰

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Pictured: Fascist commercial buildings on an Eritrean street.

Education

The Fascists have frequently been stereotyped as anti‐intellectual. This is an exaggeration, as the privileged status of both Giovanni Gentile and self‐identified superfascist Julius Evola would suggest. However, as far as colonial subjects were concerned this was no exaggeration. To quote Fascist Professor Mininni Caracciolo:

We have to recognize from the outset that the teaching of natives along the same lines as in Europe has produced most sad and dangerous results for the natives as well as for the colonizers. It is therefore necessary that native education be adapted as much as possible to the conditions and needs of the native and to the character and specific exigencies of colonialism.

Consequently, Eritreans were given, at best, a third grade education (similarly to Poles during Axis occupation), and only a tiny percentage attended. As Giuseppe Bottai and others suggested, education’s purpose was to create obedient manual laborers, which was why it was simple and extremely Italocentric. Any increase in literacy was likely only marginal:

According to the census of 1939 the population of Great Eritrea amounted to 1,537,213. Thus of a school age population of over 300,000, the total enrolment of c. 5,000 amounted to c. 1.7 per cent of the school age children and much less than 1 per cent of the total population.

This minimal enrolment was intentional:

The need for introducing western education was recognized, but at the same time it was argued that western education ought to be tailored and rationed on the grounds that the mind of the Eritrean, being infantile[,] indiscriminate extension of western education could cause mental imbalance.

Hence, no Eritrean intelligentsia developed under Fascism: all according to plan, as such an absence only made colonial rule even more secure. There was no Eritrean press and no newspapers for them to read.

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Pictured: Eritrean children vowing allegiance to the PNF.

Law

While the colonial court could have the final say on any matter (if necessary), customary laws and courts were tolerated as alternatives and many Eritrean chiefs remained, only acting as spokesmen and informants for the Fascist state. Such concessions made colonialism easier to tolerate, and they were cheaper and easier for the Fascists to maintain, but this system had its own difficulties:

The colonial judicial system, although it was meant to be a reflection or a continuation of the precolonial system, was considerably different. The most important point of difference lay in the fact that Eritrean chiefs had more power than earlier.

Backed by the colonial state, chiefs both at a village and sub‐district level distorted the balance of power that existed between the chiefs, the elders and the members of the clergy. Recruited and kept in office as long as they functioned as mouthpieces of the central administration at Asmara, the loyalty of the chiefs lay primarily with the colonial system.

The arbitrariness of the colonial system can best be seen in the manner in which administration of justice was carried out. Based on the stereotype conception of the Eritrean as someone with a fine sense of speedy justice, no distinction was made between the executive and the judicial functions of the colonial government. The same district governor acted simultaneously as a judge, albeit assisted by notables paid by the colonial state, and as an administrator.

As you can see, law in Eritrea was in many ways conservative (barring obvious obligations like ‘don’t fuck with the state’). So conservative, in fact, that the Fascists tolerated serfdom:

The serfs, who repeatedly asked the colonial state to free them from their onerous obligations to their masters would certainly have rebelled against these ruling élites had the latter chosen to resist Italian rule. The demands and aspirations of the serfs were, however, not fulfilled by the Italians. […] [Fascist] colonialism did not hasten the disintegration of feudal structures, which in fact continued to prevail up to the mid 1970s[.]

That said, in a few other ways the law differed: as the 1930s progressed a policy of apartheid evolved, limiting autonomy for Italians and Eritreans alike.

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Pictured: Colonello Giuseppe Guzzo standing next to his police car.

Conclusion

Eritrea can be seen as the exception to the rule; given how merciless the Fascists were elsewhere, Fascist rule in Eritrea likely comes across as incredibly moderate. Nevertheless, this is not due to Fascism’s merit but rather to the political needs of the day:

The failure of the policy of Italian settlement led to the new role of the colony firstly as a centre of trade and secondly as a reservoir of soldiers for the colonial army. These subsequent rôles called for a policy of political stability, which was effected without great difficulty and expense.

Nor was there anything unique about this policy:

Trading colonies generally did not require a radical restructuring of their ‘traditional’ or precolonial economic system. […] As in other African colonies the first four decades of this century were characterized by political stability which in effect meant that there was minimal resistance to colonial rule.

Nonetheless, Eritrea under Fascism differed in some notable respects:

In the case of Eritrea, the desire for radical restructuring was hampered by the scarcity of Italian capital. During the 1900–40 period the main objective of the colonial government was to run the colony as inexpensively as possible, or in other words, to maintain political stability. Issues which were likely to cause political instability were anticipated and measures were taken to pre‐empt them.

In the process of stabilization, the colonial government utilized the ethnic diversity of the colony and the various Eritrean attitudes towards the colonial system. The Tigrinyans were the only group who, on the basis of a diffuse but nevertheless real notion of Ethiopian nationalism, could really challenge Italian colonialism. The threat of Tigrinyan resistance […] was reduced by a policy of meticulous preservation of the precolonial socio‐political structures.

As for why there was a scarcity of Fascist capital:

The functions of Eritrea, firstly as a focus of transit trade and secondly as a reservoir of men for the colonial army, explain both the scarcity of readily exploitable raw material resources and the reluctance of Italian capitalists to invest in the production sector.

In short:

As Italy developed a stronger awareness of the strategic rôle of Eritrea as a staging post for colonial expansion into Ethiopia, it found it to be in its interest to maintain political stability.

And as long as they were holding a staging post, they may as well have fed their war machine and their pockets while doing it!

(Emphasis added in all cases.)