Here are the historical upper caste or class in Massawa and its environs of Eritrea (currently, the North Red Sea region), since the invasion of Abyssinia or Ethiopia by Ahmad Gragn. This is mainly since the occupation of the Ottoman Turks on the coastal area of the Red Sea. These traditional upper caste class were religious teachers, sailors, middle men, emissaries, slave traders; merchants of salt, garments, fire arms dealers, slaves, incense, coffee ...
While doing business, they also helped to spread Islamic religious teachings, and they produced and begat thousands of children in northern Ethiopia in Tigray, Wello, Gonder and Shewa from local women, predominantly in Wello.
Below are the list of the main traditional tribal lineages of Massawa and its environs. Anyone who did not belong to these tribal groups was considered or classified as a low caste, since the days of the Ottoman empire occupation of the region. Some of these were upper caste members until Haile Selassie was deposed from power in 1974.
Under Shaebia, most of the upper caste members from the coastal region were relegated and kicked out; replaced by the lower caste or the enslaved class, such as Romodan Mohammed Nur, Alamin Mohamed Seid, Ali Seid Abdela, Immaro ... People such as Abdel Qadir Kebire was originally an Amhara Jeberti of Wello or a Yeju Oromo from Wello.
ሳይቕ ሓቢብ
ቱርኪ
ኩርዲ
ሚሽናቕ
በርሓቱ
ሸሪፋይ
ሻውሽ ኣሽራፍ
ሻውሽ ሓላይ
ኢዳ
ሽነቲ
የማኒ
ቀረባሽ
ሓምዳን
ጀሚል
ሓሰበላ
ሽነቴ
ሌማን
ኣስፈደ
ኣንሰራ
ሰቤ
ሓምዳን
ደፋላ
ሎቦኔት
ሰይድ
ሸኽ ድርቡሽ