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". 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. He described in the whole of Chapter 14 his efforts to eradicate slavery, which he noted was a persistent custom in Ethiopia arising from intertribal wars, where the captured slaves could hardly be distinguished in appearance from their owners and sometimes even married them. The slave trade had already been banned unsuccessfully by his predecessors Tewodros II,
Yohannes IV and
Menelik II. Beginning in 1924, Haile Selassie I began doing everything possible to liberate all remaining slaves in Ethiopia, enrolling many of them in education programs. Despite all this, Haile Selassie asserted that
Benito Mussolini's propaganda agents (Haile Selassie singled out the Italian consul at
Harar in particular) were constantly broadcasting to the world many false reports that slavery was still being promoted in Ethiopia, in an attempt to influence world opinion against Ethiopia, have Ethiopia indicted in the
League of Nations, and create a
casus belli for the invasion, genocide, and attempted recolonization of Ethiopia with Italians. :"Again, when in 1923 (= 1931) a delegation, sent by the British Anti-Slavery Society, came to Addis Ababa, We informed them orally and in writing, after a great deal of discussion, that We shall see to it that within fifteen or, at most, twenty years from now all slaves would go free and that slavery would be totally eliminated from Ethiopia. But in any country a few offenders must always be expected, and if some men are found transgressing the proclamation that has been promulgated, all the foreign envoys know that We have punished them even with the
death penalty. Therefore, Our conscience does not rebuke Us, for We have done unceasingly everything possible as regards the liberation of the slaves." On 26 August 1942, during the Second Modernization, Haile Selassie issued a proclamation completely outlawing all slavery. ==Second modernization==