On the other hand, these same successive events and forces created the internal and external conditions for emergence of the Era of Regional States and Wrlords in Ethiopia. The designation in the traditional chronicles of Zemene Mesefinit (that is, the Era of Princes) in reference to this period of Ethiopian history hardly explains its socioeconomic aspects as well as its totality of ethnic and regional pluralism, since the chroniclers’ designation refers only to the Gondarian court and a limited area of the country during the period in question.

Indeed, of the said regional entities, the Gondarian State in the general region from the Red Sea to the Sudanese State of Fung/Sennar (1504-1820), which was between the Nile and the Atbara Rivers in the Upper Nile Valley, represented the former Hatse State of Ethiopia in its reduced form until 1855.

As it might be recalled, the Red Sea ports of Suwakin and Massawa came under Turkish permanent occupation in 1516 and 1555, respectively.

However, all Turkish attempts to occupy the hinterlands of Suwakin and Massawa failed. Also, the effective rule of the Sudanese State of Fung was limited within the area of the Third Cataract, the Nile and Atbara Rivers in the Upper Nile Valley.

This geographical limitation of the Turks to the Red Sea ports of Suwakin and Massawa, and of the Fung State to the area within the Third Cataract and the Rivers Nile and Atbara in the Upper Nile Valley created conducive conditions and a power vacuum for territorial and commercial expansion by the Gondarian State of Ethiopia in the region of the Northwest between the Red Sea and the Upper Nile Valley during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Accordingly, before 1620, Hatse Susenyos (1605-1632) greatly expanded the Ethiopian State frontier between the Red Sea and the Fung State, during which the Beja rulers of Arom (Aroma) and Atbara/Teawa (Gedaref) became tributary subjects of Ethiopia.

Thus, the chronicler Tekle Selassie declares the region of the Northwest of the Horn of Africa between the Port of Suwakin and the gold producing area of Fazughli in the Upper Nile Valley as the national frontier limit of Ethiopia.

In fact, until the Sudanese State of Fung was occupied by the Turkish agents of Egypt under the leadership of Muhamad Ali in 1820, the territorial strip from Suwakin to Fazughli was an open frontier between Ethiopia and Fung, the two sovereign states in the area.

Between 1770 and 1855, the Gondarian State itself was divided into the two main autonomous regions of Gondar and Tigrai with Puppet Hatses or Emperors in the city of Gondar under the control of the newly emerged dynasty of the Oromo Rases or regional warlords.

Furthermore, between 1696 and 1855, in the strategic south, the small but highly centralized state of Shewa emerged. During the same period, in the mid-west, Janger, Limmu-Enariya, Bosha, Jimma, Gomma, Guma, Gera, Kefa, Kullo, Konta, Mocha; in the South-West, Wolamo, Gamo, Gofa, and Konso; in the east the City State of Harer and the Sultanate of Awsa; in the far-north, Beni Amir of Tigre-Beja; and in the far-west the Beni Shangul sultanate of Bera-Jabilaw were examples of regional mini-states in Ethiopia in their evolutionary process and progress.

By the mid-nineteenth century, all in all, there were more than sixty small Ethiopian regional states, provinces, and ethnic communities of which the following are examples:

Tigre, Bogos/Bilen, Beja, Beni-Amir, Baria/Nara, Kunama, Saho, Hamasen, Seraye, Shire, Agame, Tigrai, Semen, Welkayt, Wag, Lasta, Dembia, Begamdir, Kowara, Gumuz, Agew-Midir, Damot, Gojam, Yeju, Wollo Afar/Danakil, Shewa, Kereyu, Itu, Harer, Various Somali Tribes, Bale, Arsi, Guji, Borana, Gurage, Sodo, Tulama, Mecha, Jangero, Kafa, Kullo, Konta, Wolamo, Gamo, Gofa, Ari, Hamar, Geleb, Maji, Shako, Bench-She of Gimera, Mocha, Majangir, Anuak, Nuer, Ilubabor, Limmu-Enariya, Jimma, Gomma, Gumma, Gera, Gudru, Leka, Welega, Beni-Shangul, etc.

In the nineteenth century the external forces of aggression and imperialism represented by the expansionist rulers of the neighbouring countries of Egypt and Sudan and the European imperialists of Great Britain, France, and Italy, came to view these vast and diverse regional states, provinces, and ethnic groups of Ethiopia as objects of their imperialist conquest and colonization.

The Ethiopians on their part maintained their national and historical rights and their duty to restore the former Hatse State reunification of these smaller states, provinces and communities under one political center safe from external interference.

Thus began the historical struggle of Ethiopia at great human and material cost for national independence, unity, and territorial integrity against the forces of aggression and imperialism.

(Source: National Atlas of Ethiopia)

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When Galawdewos succeeded his tather as the Hatse of Ethiopia in 1540, Imam Ahmed Gragn was the effective ruler of Ethiopia from his Dambia Headquarters in Sahart.

In Tigrai, Galawdewos encountered the Adalites, and suffered defeat and retreated to Semen before he fled to Shewa, Fatagar and Dawaro in the South. It seems that he fled from Shahart-Semen to the south by the way of Wadla-Begamdir-Gojam-Gindeberet crossing the Abay River twice, first from Begamdir into Gojam and second from Gojam into Gindeberet-Shewa.

When some 400 Portuguese soldiers, under the leadership of Dom Cristovao da Gama, landed in Massawa in July 1541, Galawdewos was in the south. The Portuguese marched to the regional capital of Debarwa, in the province of Seraye, where they stayed until December, 1541.

From Debarwa, in company with the king’s mother, the Portuguese marched towards the south via Agame in their attempt to join the king in the south. On the way, in February 1542, they captured Amba Sanayt in Agame from the Adalites. After that Imam encountered the Portuguese again in Antalo, and suffered defeat in two battles.

However, in August, 1542, with the assistance of Turkish soldiers, Imam Ahmed fought and defeated the Portuguese at the Battle of Wafla to the south of Lake Ashange.

The leader of the Portuguese soldiers fled to Massawa from the battlefield, 120 soldiers fled to Massawa from the battlefield, 120 soldiers, with the king’s mother, retreated towards the northwest and managed to join the king in Semen.

From Semen, the king and the Portuguese marched together to Dambia and, on February 22, 1543 they encountered Imam Ahmed Gragn’s soldiers at the Battle of Wayna Daga near Lake Tana. Gragn was killed in the battle. Following the death of their leader the Adalites left the north in flight.

After the death of Imam Ahmed Gragn, Galawdewos was in Dembia from February to September, 1543 consolidating the provinces and peoples of Dembia, Gojam, Begamdir, Lasta, Semen, Tigrai, etc. in the northwest and north. During this transitional time, Vizi Abbas, the cousin and successor of the late Imam Ahmed, fled from his gubernatoral region of Begamdir and seized the provinces of Fatagar, Dawaro, and Bali in the Southeast as his bases to encounter the Gelawdewos counter-offensive.

To face the new Adalite challenge under Vizi Abbas, and to consolidate the provinces and peoples of Shewa, Fatagar, Damot, Gafat, Enariya, Gurage, Waj and Hadiya, in the south, mid-west, and southeast, Galawdewos left the north with his Portuguese soldiers sometime during the closing months of 1543, and established Waj in the Zway area as the permanent seat of his government.

In October 1544, Galawdewos fought and killed Vizi Abbas at the head of his Adalite Army in the Battle of Waj. From his Waj base, Galawdewos also organized and led successful campaigns for the Hatse State restoration against the postwar provinces and peoples of Hadiya, Gurage, Damot, Gafat, and Enariya, and he made his first encounter with the new forces of the Oromo under the Bifole Luba (1546-1554) in the province of Dawaro.

Between the second half of the 1540s and 1550s, Galawdewos and his warlords, Fanuel and Hamalmal, made a series of campaigns against the Adalites for Hatse State Restoration in the region from Barr Saad El Dien to the Barr El Ajan, that is, roughly from the Awash-Zeila in the northeast to the Indian Ocean in the southeast.

Finally in 1559, Emir Nur, the Adalite successor of the late Vizir Abbas, fought and killed King Galawdewos himself at the second battle of Waj. However, when Emir Nur marched in triumph from Waj to Harer, his own country of Adal outside Harer city was already occupied by the Oromo invaders.

During the closing years of the reign of Galawdewos, in 1557, the Turks invaded and occupied the Ethiopian coastal island and port of Massawa. Between 1557 and 1589, the Turks from Suakin and Massawa made a series of more than ten different invasions into the provinces of Bahrenegash and Tigrai marching over the coastal region of Arkiko to the regional capital of Debarwa.

In the period 1557 to 1558, a Turkish invasion force from Suakin invaded the regions of Arkiko, Hamasen, Seraye, Akaleguzay, Bur, Tigrai, and Mazaga, occupied the regional capital of Debarwa, and plundered the famous monastery of Debra Damo before it was defeated and expelled by an Ethiopian army dispatched by Galawdewos in September, 1558.

In 1562, the Turks from Massawa, in collaboration with Bahrenegash Yishak (Bohri), (the governor of the Bahrenegash province,) temporarily occupied the region between Massawa and Debarwa before they were fought, defeated and expelled by King Minas (1559-1563) in April 1562.

Then, in 1572-1578, and again from Massawa the Turks made a series of incursions into Hamasen, Seraye, and Tigrai.

However, in November-December 1578, a massive Ethiopian army gathered from the provinces of Bali, Sharka, Hadiya, Waj, Damot, Shewa, Gojam, and Dembia, including Adal and Oromo warriors under the leadership of Sarsa Dengil, fought and defeated them in the series of Seraye Battles in which both Bahrenegash Yishak and the leader of the Turks were killed.

Finally between 1588 and 1589, the Turks from Dehano (Arkiko) on the coast invaded Hamasen, Seraye, and Tigrai occupying Debarwa until they were expelled by the Ethiopian army of Sarsa Dengil.

In January, 1589, Sarsa Dengil, in a counter offensive, at the head of the Ethiopian army, went from Debarwa to Dahano (Arkiko) and there he fought and defeated the enemy.

However, the Turks escaped from Arkiko to Massawa by boat. The Ethiopian army and leader possessed no boats or naval force with which they could dislodge the defeated enemy from Massawa Island. Here the Turks stayed until the second decade of the last century when the island was seized by the Egyptians.

The objectives of Sarsa Dengil’s domestic policy between 1563 and 1597 were ceaseless and unsuccessful campaigns for the restoration of the Hatse State and for centralized control of the regions of Gafat, Damot, Bizamo, Enariy, Bosha, Gurage, Hadiya, Adal, Falasha, Agaw, Shinasha, Gumuz, and the Oromo tribes.

In 1563, Sarsa Dengil became the Hatse of Ethiopia in Begamdir against his rivals and, from there, by the way of Gojam, he came to the Gindebert-Mugar area and established temporary centres of state consolidation, first in Gindebert and then in Waj.

He organized and led in person a series of campaigns against the Gafat, Damot, Bizamo, Gurage, Enariya, Bosha, and Hadiya countries. In 1577, he marched from Waj across the countries of Sharka and Hadiya, and fought and killed the last rebellious Adalite Sultan, Mahamed IV, at the Wabe Valley Battle in the Southeast. In the 1570s and 1580s, the other targets of Sarsa Dengil’s wars were various Oromo tribes in the South, and Felasha, the Agew, Shinasha and Gumuz peoples in Begamdir, Wegera, Semen, Dembia and Gojam.

In the final analysis, these wars of Sarsa Dengil, by expelling the Turks from the two northern provinces of Bahrenegash and Tigrai, and by repulsing various Oromo tribes from the provinces of Tigrai, Lasta, Begamdir, Dembia, and Gojam, created historical conditions for the subsequent rise of the Gondarian state of Ethiopia in the northwest in the lands of the Agew, Felasha, and Gumuz peoples.

(Source: National Atlas of Ethiopia)

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In this respect from the time when the pharaonic Egyptians identified the coastal region and inhabitants of North-East Africa as Punt and the Habasha, respective, in the mid 3rd millennium B.C., to the advent of the Greek, Roman, and Arab writers in the subcontinent between 300 B.C. and 1400 A.D., there were no surviving written accounts of the lands and peoples of southern and eastern regions of the subcontinent.

The Greek, Roman, and Arab writers found and recognized the two independent and sovereign states of Ethiopia and Azania (Zanj) in the North-East African subcontinent. The Greek and Roman writers commonly and vaguely identified the stateless tribes of the coastal regions of North-East Africa simply as the – “Troglodytes” and the “Barbares”.

Indeed the Greek and Roman writers described the tribal people of the eastern lowland of the subcontinent not by their ethnic or linguistic names, but only by their ethnic and cultural habits; calling them, according to their cultural practices, simply as the:

• Ichthoyophages (fish eaters)
• Strouthophages (ostrich eaters)
• Acridophages (locust eaters)
• Chelonophages (tortoise eaters)
• Crephages ( flesh eaters)
• Elephantophages (elephant eaters) 

On the other hand, the medieval Arab writers, with the exception of the people and state of Azania (Zanj), did view and recognize the vast and diverse regions and inhabitants of the subcontinent as integral parts of the Ethiopian Hatse state, that is, the lands and peoples of the Ethiopian Hatse (Atse) or the “king of kings” in Geez.

Nevertheless, the documentary accounts of the pharaonic Egyptians, the ancient Graeco-Romans, and the medieval Arabs on the North-East African subcontinent being limited to its northern and coastal regions, do not help us to understand the peoples and the cultural evolution of the southern regions before they became integral parts of the medieval Hatse State of Ethiopia at the beginning of the fourteenth century A.D.

The undated monolithic stone monuments of the cemetery type in Shewa and Sidamo, the archaeological sites of stone – built necropolii, cisterns, store pits, and houses in the southeastern region of Awash-Chercher, some of which are dated at about 3700 years ago the 3500 years old paintings of animals at the Laga Oda site in Harerge, and the 3000 years old engravings of cattle at the Shabe Site in Sidamo are some of the material evidence that the southern interior of North-East Africa, like its northern and eastern counterparts, have been an area of human and cultural evolution and progress over several millennia.

It seems that the Harla, Shewa, Yifat, Argoba, Warjih, Adal, Hadiya, Sidama, Dawaro, Fatagar, Arababini, Sharka, Bali, Dara, Waj, Gurage, Damot, Ganz, and Omotic peoples and regional states emerged in the region under investigation during the last centuries of the 1st millennium A.D., before they became parts of the Ethiopian Hatse State in the 14th century.

Keywords: Ethiopia, Azania, Zanj, Hatse, Atse, Harla, Shewa, Yifat, Argoba, Warjih, Adal, Hadiya, Sidama, Dawaro, Fatagar, Arababini, Sharka, Bali, Dara, Waj, Gurage, Damot, Ganz

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Documentary evidence on the ancient Ethiopian land, people, and state of Daamat have come to us mainly from the archaeological inscriptions discovered at the historical sites of Kaskase, Matara, Yeha, Adi Gelemo, Enda Cherkos, Melazo and Hawlti, in these two northern regions.

From these historical sites have come some 13 royal inscriptions containing the names of four different kings, one queen, and six state deities.

These rulers of ancient Ethiopia identified their country and state by the name of Daamat. The national symbol of the Daamatites was the ibex, that is, the Ethiopian Walia. Among many other things, the Daamatites had their own script and language.

Whereas their Puntites ancestors had relationships mainly with the Egyptians, the Daamatites also appeared to have had close commercial and cultural acquaintances with the neighbouring people of Asia and particularly with the state of Saba in Arabia.

During the first centuries A.D., the Aksumite state and civilization of Ethiopia emerged as the historical and cultural extension and geographical expansion of the Daamat people, society, and state.

According to Schneider, the leading living authority on the Daamatite period of Ethiopian history, it seems that the Daamtite system of evolutionary script and language developed into the system of Geez script and language of Ethiopia during the Aksumite period.

Keywords: Habasha, daamatite state, Punt, Daamat, Kaskase, Matara, Yeha, Adi Gelemo, Enda Cherkos, Melazo and Hawlti,

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The coastal region of North-East Africa, approximately between today’s the Red Sea port of Suwakin in the north, and the Cape of Guardafui in the southeast, was dimly known to the pharaonic Egyptians as the Land of Punt, the land of spices and deities.

They also called the people of Punt by the name of Habasha. In the opinion of one leading Egyptologist, the historical origin of the name “Habasha” in reference to both the Aksumites and the present Ethiopians in the subcontinent seems to be from Punt.

According to the hieroglyphical records and the study of the pharaonic Egyptians, between the 5th and 18th dynasties of that ancient country, that is, between ca. 2800 and 1300 B.C., the great Egyptian rulers like Suhare (2743-2731 B.C) and Hatshepsut (1504-1482 B.C) every so often used to dispatch commercial expeditions to the Puntite land, both by the sea and land routes of the Red Sea and the Nile Valley.

The direction of the Egyptian Nile Valley route to Punt seems to be via the Nubia-Atbara-Barka caravan line.

In the long list of Puntite natural products of minerals, animals, and woods imported by the Egyptians, antimony, electrum, gold, gold dust, malachite, silver, eye cosmetic, apes, asses, bulls, calves, cynocephali, feathers, giraffes, greyhounds, ivory, monkeys, ostrich eggs, ostrich feathers, oxen, panthers, panther skins, rhinoceros horn, balsam, boomerangs, cinnamon wood, ebony fragrant gums, frankincense, incense, myrrh,..were included.

The Egyptian artist who painted the picture of the Hatshepsut commercial fleet of five ships to the Puntite land under the leadership of a certain captain Nehasi, 3500 years ago, left behind for humanity the only known documentary evidence of Punt’s natural and human scenery with its people, houses, plants, and animals including the king and queen of the country named Perehu and Ati, respectively.

This famous painting of Punt has been preserved in the Hatshepsut Temple of Deir el Bahari in Egypt as the first and extant historical document of the land and people of ancient Ethiopia.

Keywords: Ethiopia, Punt, habasha, North-East Africa, Egyptians, land of spices and deities, Habasha,

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