Modernization under Haile Selassie I

Many changes were made during the reign of Haile Selassie I toward the modernization of Ethiopia upon his accession as Emperor (King of Kings) on November 2, 1930, as well as before, beginning from the time he effectively controlled Ethiopia in 1916 as Regent Plenipotentiary, Ras Tafari.

Many of the details of the modernizations made before the fascist invasion during the Second Italo–Ethiopian War are written in Haile Selassie I's autobiography, My Life and Ethiopia's Progress Vol. I (written 1938), particularly in Chapter 12, "About the improvement, by ordinance and proclamation, of internal administration, and about the efforts to allow foreign civilization to enter Ethiopia". Among the efforts of his program as he listed them in the chapter:

Modernization was temporarily interrupted in 1935 following the invasion of Ethiopia by fascist Italy, eventually culminating in the Second World War. As the Emperor himself noted in his Introduction to Volume I, "We were particularly convinced, by the policies directed against Us, that the enemy's heart was stricken with envy at Our setting up a constitution to strengthen and to consolidate Ethiopia's unity, at Our opening schools for boys and girls, at Our building hospitals in which Our people's health was to be safeguarded, as well as at all sorts of other initiatives of Ours by which Ethiopia's independence would be affirmed, not only in terms of history but in actual fact."

Slavery as practiced in what is modern Ethiopia and Eritrea was essentially domestic. Slaves thus served in the houses of their masters or mistresses.and were not employed to any significant extent for productive purpose. Among the Amhara and Tigray slaves were normally regarded as second-class members of their owners' family. and were fed, clothed and protected. They generally roamed around freely and conducted business as free people. They had complete freedom of religion and culture. The first attempt to abolish slavery in Ethiopia was made by Emperor Tewodros II (r. 1855–1868), but the slave trade was not abolished completely until 1923 with Ethiopia's accession to the League of Nations. The Anti-Slavery Society estimated there were 2 million slaves in the early 1930s out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million.

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