A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1991. Bahru Zewde
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a new chapter in the country’s history. The creed, in its Orthodox form, came to express the cultural identity of a large section of its highland population. Ideologically and diplomatically, the Ethiopian church and state were thenceforth tied up with the Alexandrian patriarchate in Egypt, who had sole authority to consecrate a bishop for the Ethiopian church, the abun.
From about the middle of the seventh century, Aksum entered a process of decline. The rise of Islam and the subsequent disruption of the Red Sea trade sapped Aksum’s source of life. Beja pressures from the north combined to force the Aksumite state to recoil further inwards. It was in these circumstances that the Agaw, hitherto subjugated, seized state power and inaugurated their almost eponymous dynasty, Zagwe. While the origins of this dynasty are shrouded in obscurity, the period for which we have some reliable documentation lasts from about 1150 to 1270. The Zagwe left their deepest imprint on Ethiopian history through the construction of eleven monolithic churches in Lalibala, named after one of the more famous of their kings.
In 1270, the Zagwe were overthrown by Yekunno-Amlak, a chieftain of one of the subject peoples, the Amhara (then inhabiting the Wallo region). He inaugurated a dynasty which called itself ‘Solomonic’, to emphasize its legitimacy as opposed to the Zagwe, who were portrayed as usurpers. Yekunno-Amlak and his successors, notably Amda-Tseyon (r. 1314–1344) and Zar’a-Yaeqob (r. 1434–1468), built an empire which matched, and in some respects surpassed, its Aksumite predecessor in military might and territorial extent. The period also witnessed a further expansion of Christianity to the south, as well as to the Lake Tana region and Gojjam. But Islam posed a serious challenge in the south-east. The bid to control the vital trade route linking the Gulf of Aden port of Zeila to the southern interior, even more than religious divergence, pitted the Christian state against a string of Muslim principalities that had emerged since the turn of the ninth century. By the end of the fifteenth century, the supremacy of the Christian kingdom over these principalities had become an established fact. Simultaneously, the quest for ‘Prester John’, a legendary Christian king of superlative wealth and power believed to rule somewhere beyond the Muslim crescent which shut Europe off from Asia, brought the Portuguese to Ethiopia. An important Portuguese mission visited the country in 1520, and established the basis for future co-operation.
In 1527, the tide began to turn against the Christian kingdom. Galvanizing for his own ends an irresistible population movement of the nomadic Afar and Somali, a military genius by the name of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim, more popularly known as Ahmad Gragn or Gragn (‘the Left-Handed’), led the Muslims in a series of sweeping victories over the Christian kingdom. In 1529, at Shembera Kure, a site about 44 miles (70 km) to the south-east of what is now Addis Ababa, Gragn scored his first major victory over the Christian forces led by Emperor Lebna-Dengel (r. 1508–1540). Harried from one part of his realm to another by the conquering foe, the king died a fugitive in 1540, after sending a desperate request for Portuguese military assistance. A force of some 400 Portuguese, led by Christopher da Gama (son of Vasco da Gama, discoverer of the route round South Africa to India), arrived the following year, and helped to defeat Ahmad Gragn at the Battle of Wayna Daga, to the east of Gondar, in 1543.
But the damage had already been done. The Christian kingdom could not easily recover its former might. Indeed, like two exhausted gladiators, both the Christian kingdom and the Muslim state of Adal in the Harar region, whence Gragn had launched his phenomenal assault, lay prostrate as the Oromo swept across the highlands like a tidal wave. This was the most significant population movement in the country’s recent history, changing its demographic shape and its political geography. The political centre steadily retreated to the north. In the mean time, the Jesuit missionaries, who had come to Ethiopia hoping to make religious capital out of the atmosphere of friendship generated by the Portuguese military support of the Christian state, made continued attempts to convert the kings and their country to Catholicism. They nearly succeeded in doing so with Emperor Susneyos (r. 1607–1632), who embraced the new creed in the hope of strengthening the declining power of the monarchy. Nobility, clergy and peasantry rose against him. Appalled by the ensuing civil war, he gracefully abdicated in favour of his son, Fasiladas (r. 1632–1667). The first act of the new king was to expel the Jesuits.
Fasiladas is also famous in Ethiopian history for founding Gondar as the imperial capital in 1636. Coming as it did after a long period when Ethiopian kings had ruled from roving royal camps, the establishment of Gondar marked a new chapter in the country’s urban history. Fasiladas led the way in the construction of a number of impressive castles and churches in and around the town. But this flourishing of urban culture did not check the decline of monarchical power. The power of regional lords continued to grow at the expense of the monarchs. By the second half of the eighteenth century, the emperors in Gondar merely reigned; they did not rule. This period of Ethiopian history is known as the Zamana Masafent (‘Era of the Princes’). It forms the prelude to the modern history of Ethiopia.
Sources, Introduction
Anfray, Francis. ‘The Civilizations of Aksum from the First to the Seventh Century’, in G. Mokhtar, ed., General History of Africa. II. Ancient Civilizations of Africa. Berkeley, California, 1981.
Bender, M.L., Bowen, J.D., Cooper, R.L., and Ferguson, C.A., eds. Language in Ethiopia. London, 1976.
Fattovich, Rodolfo. ‘Remarks on the Late Prehistory and Early History of Northern Ethiopia’, in Taddese Beyene, ed., Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Volume I. Addis Ababa and Frankfurt-on-Main, 1988.
Johansen, Donald C. and Edey, Maitland, A. Lucy: The Beginnings of Mankind. New York, 1981.
Kobishanov, Yuri M. Axum. University Park and London, 1979.
Merid Wolde Aregay. ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom, with Special Reference to the Galla Migrations and Their Consequences.’ PhD thesis (University of London, 1971) (available in the Department of History, Addis Ababa University).
Mesfin Wolde-Mariam. An Introductory Geography of Ethiopia. Addis Ababa, 1972.
Taddesse Tamrat. Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270-1527. Oxford, 1972.
1
The Background
1. The internal scene in the first half of the nineteenth century
The northern principalities
The year 1769 symbolizes the initiation of the period in Ethiopian history known as the Zamana Masafent. It was in that year that a Tegrean prince named Ras Mikael Sehul (the second name being an epithet to describe his astuteness) made a bloody intervention in royal politics in Gondar. He killed the reigning emperor, Iyoas, and put his own favourite, Emperor Yohannes II, on the throne. Before a year was out, Yohannes himself incurred Ras Mikael’s disfavour, and was in turn deposed and replaced by Emperor Takla-Haymanot II.
This making and unmaking of kings by Ras Mikael marked the nadir of imperial power. While the intervention of other members of the nobility was not to be so dramatic, the long-standing struggle for power between the monarchy and the nobility had been decidedly resolved in favour of the latter. Until 1855, when Kasa Haylu became Emperor Tewodros II and restored the power and prestige of the imperial throne, the successive emperors were little more than puppets in the hands of the forceful nobility. An emperor had practically no army of his own. In the 1830s and 1840s, his annual revenue was estimated at a paltry 300 Maria Theresa silver dollars, the Austrian currency then in use in Ethiopia, whereas Ras Walda-Sellase of Tegre had 75,000 thalers at his disposal, and Negus Sahla-Sellase of Shawa had some 85,000 thalers.
Ras Mikael’s domination of Gondar politics was itself short-lived. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a strong man by the name of Ali Gwangul had emerged as a powerful figure and kingmaker. He initiated what came to be known as the Yajju dynasty, after their place of origin in present-day northern Wallo. From their base in Dabra Tabor, successive members of this dynasty controlled the throne for about eighty years. Although Muslim and Oromo in origin, they had become Christianized, and followed