Abyssinia Research Articles

ETHIOPIA'S UNACKNOWLEDGED PROBLEM: THE OROMO

THE FRONTIERS OF ETHIOPIA have been restored, or are being restored, to their old Imperial limits, and ethnic minorities in Eritrea and the Ogaden which were seeking to break away are either cowed or on the defensive, at any rate for the present. The difficulties that Ethiopia has been enduring in the Horn have received fairly full news coverage, because the fighting zones have been accessible to reporters and the interests of the Great Powers and their satellites have been involved. Memories of European perfidy to Ethiopia in the 1930s perhaps still tugs a little at the consciences of the elderly, while the young question why it is that, whereas the technology of the rich nations could only be tardily organized to alleviate the famine which toppled Haile Selassie, it can quickly be organized to airlift tanks to Jigjiga and to distribute machine guns to penniless peasants. But the efflorescence of feelings of common nationhood and of aspirations for self-determination among the cluster of peoples who speak Oromo has not been much commented upon. Yet the problem of the Oromo people has been a major and central one in the Ethiopian Empire ever since it was created by Minilik in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. If the Oromo people only obtain a portion of the freedoms which they seek then the balance of political power in Ethiopia will be completely altered. If the Oromo act with unity they must necessarily constitute a powerful force. What is left of the Ethiopian regular army and the militia depends amongst other things on Oromo officers and other ranks. If an honest and free election was held (an unlikely event) and the people voted by ethnic blocs, as experience of elections elsewhere in Africa suggests that they well might do, then around half the votes would be cast by Oromo for Oromo and only about one-third for Amhara.

Land and Peasants in Imperial Ethiopia: The Social Background to a Revolution

Land and Peasants in Imperial Ethiopia: The Social Background to a Revolution

Menilek's Shewa - Shewa, Menilek and the Ethiopian Empire, 1813–1889. By R. H. Kofi Darkwah. London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1975. Pp. xxii + 233. £9.50; £1.90 paperback (Africa only).

Menilek's Shewa - Shewa, Menilek and the Ethiopian Empire, 1813–1889. By R. H. Kofi Darkwah. London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1975. Pp. xxii + 233. £9.50; £1.90 paperback (Africa only).

Land and Peasants in Imperial Ethiopia; the social background to a revolution

Land and Peasants in Imperial Ethiopia; the social background to a revolution

Aspects of Turkana Leadership during the Era of Primary Resistance

After a considerable period of conflict with nineteenth-century traders, hunters and ‘explorers’, the Turkana of northwestern Kenya actively resisted the occupation of their country by the Imperial forces of British East Africa and Uganda during the second and third decades of the twentieth century. At first, this primary resistance was largely in the hands of war-leaders, notably Ebei, the most important military leader of the southern sections. Bitterness engendered by Hut Taxes and other unpopular British policies led to the brief ascendancy of Koletiang, an influential southern diviner, until he was imprisoned in 1911. Again the resistance leadership fell to the military until especially brutal ‘punitive actions’ in 1915 had the effect of consolidating resistance in the north. At this point, Lowalel, another powerful diviner, became the spiritual patron of the war-leaders and their followers, reaffirming the close co-operation which traditionally had existed between religious and military leaders in Turkana society. So charismatic and innovative was Lowalel's leadership that he amassed armies several thousand strong and was joined by other peoples including the Merille and Dongiro, as well as by the forces of the Ethiopian Empire, in resisting the extension of British colonial rule.

Shewa, Menilek and the Ethiopian Empire

Shewa, Menilek and the Ethiopian Empire

Religious Strangers in the Kingdom of Ethiopia - Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270–1527 by Taddesse Tamrat Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972. Pp. xv+ 327. £5.50. $18.00. - Priests and Politicians: Protestants and Catholic Missions in Orthodox Ethiopia, 1830–68 by Donale Crummey Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972. Pp. xii+ 176. £4.00. $13.00

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Social Formation and Political Adaptation in Ethiopia

Up to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Ethiopia remained essentially what it had been for centuries – a highly isolated, thoroughly traditional, fervently Christian kingdom. During the closing decades of the last century, the kingdom was greatly enlarged through a vast territorial expansion southwards which created the Ethiopian empire as it is today, and established the Christian Ethiopians as the dominant group within the heterogeneous state. The expansion, and the contemporary appearance of European imperialism in the Horn of Africa, helped to break down the historic isolation of this ancient society. In the decades that followed, sporadic attempts to introduce modernisation in Ethiopia had only a superficial impact, and it was only after World War II, following a brief but painful experience with Italian colonialism during 1935–41, that this process commenced in earnest.

The Journals of C. W. Isenberg and J. L. Krapf. Detailing Their Proceedings in the Kingdom of Shoa and Journeys in Other Parts of Abyssinia 1839-1842. 1st ed. 1843. 2nd ed

The Journals of C. W. Isenberg and J. L. Krapf. Detailing Their Proceedings in the Kingdom of Shoa and Journeys in Other Parts of Abyssinia 1839-1842. 1st ed. 1843. 2nd ed

Contributions from African Sources to the History of European Competition in the Upper Valley of the Nile

Of the African states with which European Powers were in contact during the period of active competition on the Upper Nile, two in particular, the Empire of Ethiopia and the Mahdist State, were sufficiently sophisticated to transact their political and administrative business in writing and to maintain more or less systematic records. Thanks to the work of P. M. Holt, the nature and scope of the Mahdist archives are now well known, and it is evident that they can be expected to furnish a very detailed picture of the fiscal and military organization of the Mahdist State. The documentation of external affairs is necessarily much less abundant; in principle, theMahdiacould not entertain diplomatic relations with ‘the corruptions of this world ’—the existing political organisms which, whether frankly infidel or officially Muslim, had been rendered obsolete by the new dispensation. But this principle was gradually eroded by the exigencies of practical politics. The foreign correspondence of the early Mahdia is simply a series of minatory admonitions to the ‘enemies of God,’ summoning them to submit to the Mahdi; but as the universal aspirations of Mahdism were tacitly abandoned under the Khalifa, its external relations reverted to a more conventional form. Certain uncommitted Muslim states of the western (Nigerian) Sudan began to be considered as potential friends rather than as a part of the Mahdistdar al-harb.

Burial among the Koma of Western Abyssinia

Burial among the Koma of Western Abyssinia

Snipe in Abyssinia

Snipe in Abyssinia

Some impressions of Abyssinia

Some impressions of Abyssinia

Ethiopia

WE have to go back to the days of Rome for the mode of development inaugurated by Italy in its new Empire of Ethiopia. It started with road-making, on which at one time 60,000 Italians were employed, and already more than 3,000 miles of macadamized highways have been built out of 7,000 miles planned. At the same time the Italian scientific societies were mobilized to collect and tabulate the facts relating to earth, air and water. Lake Tana is stated to be of little importance to the Nile floods. Alluvial gold was discovered and is now being worked, but there is no likelihood of rich reefs. Platinum seems possibly to be of more importance, and there was also discovered copper and iron ores, but no petroleum. The fauna and flora were surveyed in connexion with their adaptation to various altitudes and meteorological conditions. Ethiopia An Empire in the Making. By Ferdinando Quaranta. Pp. xx + 120 + 23 plates. (London: P. S. King and Son, Ltd., 1939.) 7s. 6d. net.

A correspondent in Abyssinia

A correspondent in Abyssinia

The highlands of Abyssinia

The highlands of Abyssinia

Italy in Abyssinia

The Italo-Abyssinian situation forms an integral part of the general European diplomatic picture and has a particular bearing on Italy's relations with France. France has been Abyssinia's chief support since the days of Menelek. It was France which furnished him with officers, munitions, and diplomatic support against Crispi's effort to impose an Italian protectorate upon Abyssinia in accord with the Italian interpretation of the Treaty of Uchiali (May 2,1889). It was France which, against the desires of both Italy and Great Britain, secured Abyssinia's admission to the League on September 28, 1923. Two-thirds of Abyssinia's foreign trade passes over the French railroad from Addis Ababa to Jibuti, the capital of French Somaliland. This virtual mo nopoly on Abyssinia's external commerce is protected by an agreement forbidding the concession of any rights to another company that would compete with the Addis Ababa line. One might suppose that Abyssinians would resent this stran gle-hold on the economic life of their country and that France's paramount diplomatic position at Addis Ababa would be im paired. That this is not the case has been due to the thorough realization on the part of the Abyssinian ruling caste that with out the aid and comfort of at least one Great Power they are at the mercy of the others, and that France, since her defeat at Fashoda in 1898, has put aside any ulterior designs on. Abys sinia's territorial integrity. Diminutive French Somaliland touches Abyssinia for not more than 250 miles, whereas the possessions of England and Italy hem her in along thousands of miles ? on all her other frontiers, in fact. Manifestly, then, any aggressive move in Abyssinia on the part of Italy presupposes a preliminary arrangement between Italy and France. It is for this reason that in the recent pourparlers

“A Flight to Abyssinia”

“A Flight to Abyssinia”

6. Report on the Hydras collected during Dr. Hugh Scott's and Mr. J. Omer‐Cooper's Expedition to Abyssinia (H. ethiopiæ, sp. n.)

6. Report on the Hydras collected during Dr. Hugh Scott's and Mr. J. Omer‐Cooper's Expedition to Abyssinia (H. ethiopiæ, sp. n.)

Journeys from Maji, South-West Abyssinia

Journeys from Maji, South-West Abyssinia