White Aethiopians (Λευκαιθίοπες ; Leucæthiopes) is a term found in ancient Greco-Roman literature, which may have referred to various light-complexioned populations inhabiting the Aethiopia region of antiquity. The exonym is used by Pliny the Elder, and is also mentioned by Pomponius Mela, Ptolemy and Orosius. These authorities do not, however, agree on the geographical location of the White Aethiopians.
Medieval geographers, including Ibn Hawqal and Leo Africanus, similarly noted the existence of various "white" or "olive" groups and individuals in territories and kingdoms south of the Sahara. However, the fate of these inhabitants is uncertain.
Classical origins
Pliny the Elder wrote in section 5.8 of his Natural History that:
Oric Bates notes that Ptolemy wrote of the White Aethiopians and the Melanogaetulians, and compares this to the mention by Orosius of the Libyoaethopians. Bates places the White Aethiopians in Morocco and the Melanogaetulians just to the east of them, claiming Ptolemy's authority for this, and arguing that "These descriptives are good evidence of the ancient opposition of whites and blacks in the Sahara, and of their fusion." Bates further compares these claims with what he argues is the "marked xanthochroid element of foreign (Nordic) origin" in Morocco, i.e. a mixing of light-skinned people from Northern Europe.
Pomponius Mela wrote, in Frank E. Romer's translation, that "On those shores washed by the Libyan Sea, however, are found the Libyan Aegyptians, the White Aethiopians, and, a populous and numerous nation, the Gaetuli. Then a region, uninhabitable in its entire length, covers a broad and vacant expanse."
Both Herodotus and Strabo "speak of two Ethiopias, one eastern, the other western". Strabo also said that the ancient Greeks "designated as Ethiopia the whole of the southern countries towards the ocean", not just a region near Egypt. Ephorus asserted that the White Ethiopians came from the Far East. Philostratus claimed that "The Indians are the wisest of mankind. The Ethiopians are a colony of them".
Medieval geography
According to Richard Smith, Ibn Hawqal, a 10th-century traveller from Baghdad, divides the Berber clans into "the pure Sanhaja and the Banu Tanamak", the latter being "originally Sudan (i.e. black) whose skin and complexion became white because they live close to the North". Smith reports Ibn Hawqal as listing 22 named kinds of Banu Tanamak, but without saying whether they were "political, cultural, geographic, social, or linguistic in nature". Smith suggests that the most likely scenario is that these ancient Ethiopian tribes, as represented today by the Haratin, were absorbed into Berber communities. Thus, he posits that Ibn Hawqal's "strange report of the Banu Tanamak", who changed from black to white, may have echoed "a real event, the absorption of tribes". Robert Brown likewise argues that "the "white" Berbers referred to may be only survivals of the original stock now reduced to duskiness by the infusion of Arab and Sudanic blood".
The 16th century explorer Leo Africanus described the existence of various "white" or "olive" groups and individuals inhabiting territories and kingdoms south of the Sahara. Besides the "white, tawney Moores" of the former Africa Proconsulare, he indicates that such light-complexioned peoples were concentrated in the Horn of Africa, comprising much of the Adal Sultanate's native populace and a significant portion of the denizens of the Mogadishu Sultanate. Outside of these areas, Leo Africanus writes that most of the inhabitants were Cafri. He further asserts that pockets of other "white" or "olive"-skinned residents could nonetheless also be found on two small islands north of Socotra ("the two sisters"), in parts of the Zanguebar coast (the Kingdom of Melinde and on the island of Quiloa), and among descendants of Chinese settlers on the island of Saint Laurence (Madagascar).