Bonacci, Giulia. "The Return to Ethiopia of the Twelve Tribes of Israel". New West Indian Guide, Vol.90, No.1-2 (2016): 1-27.

Bonacci, Giulia. "The Return to Ethiopia of the Twelve Tribes of Israel". New West Indian Guide, Vol.90, No.1-2 (2016): 1-27.

• The Twelve Tribes of Israel is a Rastafarian organization that is prominent in the faith in terms of members and international influence. Despite this, it has traditionally been excluded from research because most remembers refused to be interviewed. The membership of the organization is middle-class and well organized, both traits which set it apart from the rest of the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica (2-3).
• Passports and official permissions are a necessary part of travelling from Jamaica to Ethiopia, meaning that the representation of the professional middle-class in the membership of the Twelve Tribes makes it more effective at securing visas and succeeding in settlement than other groups (16).
• Rastafarianism began in the 1950s as social critique of colonial and post-colonial order in Jamaica through the expression of black pride. Whereas dominant authorities oppressed blacks, the Rastafarian proclamation of Emperor Haile Selassie as divine exalted blackness as a positive trait (4).
• The movement of a 'return' to Africa did not begin in Jamaica with the Rastafarian movement, as historical antecedents existed in the form of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association. Serious efforts to settle Jamaican blacks in Africa began in 1961, when the Jamaican government sent a delegation to 5 African countries to look for settlement opportunities (5).
• The first hope for a 'return' to Ethiopia was signaled in 1955, when Emperor Haile Selassie gave land outside of Shashamane to American and Caribbean blacks. Real immigration from Jamaica only began in 1966, however, following a visit to the island by Emperor Haile Selassie (4-5).
• The Twelve Tribes was founded in 1968 by Vernon Carrington, known as Prophet Gad, a middle-class factory-worker from Kingston and a leader in the Rastafarian community. He believed that the biblical tribes of Israel were scattered, and that his mission was to unify them and 'return' to Ethiopia (6).
• Mr. Carrington developed an ideology based on the popular ascription of the twelve tribes to the twelve sons of Jacob. He attached these tribal identities to the calendar, announcing that each month belonged to a different tribe, allowing for the creation of new, separate, tribesmen through procreation (6-7).
• Mr. Carrington registered his organization as branch of the Ethiopian World Federation [EWF], a group originally created in 1937 to organize financial support for Ethiopia during the Italy conquest. The EWF had received land from Emperor Haile Selassie and was seen as a step towards 'returning' to Africa (7).
• Even as Local 15 of Kingston, part of the EWF, the organization that would become the Twelve Tribes was unusually concerned with sending members to Ethiopia, doing so more actively than any other Rastafarian group (7-8).
• In 1970, following a misunderstanding with an American member of the EWF, who took their dues money with the promise of settlement in southeastern Ethiopia, but did not deliver, the leadership of Local 15 became less willing to trust or engage with the rest of the EWF (8-9).
• The Local 15 led its own expedition to Ethiopia to determine the possibilities of settlement, attempting to partner with the Local 43 chapter of the EWF in this process. They met with resistance from the EWF, and decided to abandon the 'legitimate' organization to form their own Rastafarian immigration movement in 1973 (9-11).
• The first member of the Twelve Tribes of Israel settled in Ethiopia in September 1972, under the protection of the EWF, with a plot of land in Shashamane. The settlement was isolated and undeveloped, supporting only twenty people, and had poor access to water or medical care. Many early settlers died of common diseases within months of arriving (12-13).
• The call to travel to the 'promised land' of Ethiopia was purposefully evocative of Jesus' call for his disciples to abandon their worldly possessions and follow in his worship. This call for personal abandonment led many, including the first settler, to leave behind wives and families in pursuit of religious duty (15, 21).
• Divides existed within Rastafarianism regarding the nature of Christ and the faith's relation to Christianity. Whereas the majority of Rastafarians viewed Emperor Haile Selassie as blessed, only the Twelve Tribes actually appropriated Christian ideology and proclaimed the Emperor as the second coming of Jesus Christ. This direct interaction with Christian theology made them more successful in a heavily Christian country like Jamaica (13-14).
• The Rastafarian community in Ethiopia was deeply affected by the revolution of 1974, in which the Emperor was overthrown by the Communist Derg junta. The Rastafarians were targeted because of their connection to the Empire, and saw their homes and farmland nationalized in March 1975. Most settlers fled, and those that remained suffered the same oppression and hardship as the rest of Ethiopia (14).
• Communication between the settler communities in Ethiopia and the larger Rastafarian networks outside allowed for information about life under military rule to circulate. Many settlers urged a slowdown of 'returns', and many Jamaicans refused to leave. Those members who did arrive in the 1970s faced food shortages, and were forced to rely on remittances from the Rastafarian diaspora to survive (17).
• Immigration vastly increased following the collapse of the Derg regime in 1991, as wealthier members of the Twelve Tribes poured into Shashamane, including urban areas. At this point around 800 Rastafarians live in Shashamane, in area known as the Jamaican neighborhood (21).
• It was during the period of low immigration because of military rule than the Twelve Tribes really built a transnational organizational structure. They established offices among black communities in Australia, the Americas, and Europe, and set out basic guidelines for doctrine and the process of 'returns' to Ethiopia (18).
• These offices helped establish two principle and unique characteristics of the Twelve Tribes, their presence in middle-classes and their inclusion of white Rastafarians. The centers in Britain and America in particular attracted different racial groups and class, resulting in a much more diverse membership than other Rastafarian groups (18-19).
• During the 1990s, when the Derg regime fell and access to Ethiopia was much more liberal, many members financed their own travel to Ethiopia, demonstrated the vastly increased financial support of Twelve Tribe members compared to the poor Jamaican base of other Rastafarian groups (20).
• Mr. Carrington died on 22 March 2005, opening the way for power struggles between the organization's increasingly diverse membership, both in Ethiopia and abroad. The group's new divisions are reflect in settlement activity, as different branches now finance distinct settlements in Shashamane, Addis Ababa, and Bahir Dar (22).