History of Ethiopia

The series of concomitant events of the Luso-Turkish interference in the regional affairs of the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Horn of Africa; the Adalite Wars of 1524-1543, and the Great Ethiopian Ethnic Migrations of 1520-1660, jointly interrupted the evolutionary process and progress of the Ethiopian Hatse State until 1855.

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)