History of Ethiopia

The history of Ethiopia encompasses the prehistory and history of Ethiopia to the present day. The cornerstones are the late antique Aksumite Empire and the Abyssinia Empire , which existed from the 12th century to 1974 .

prehistory

Remains of millions of years old pre-humans ( Australopithecus afarensis ) were found in Ethiopia , including the well-preserved skeleton of " Lucy " ( see Donald Johanson ) in 1974 in the Afar Depression , the area of the Afar nomads.

The country in ancient times

Ethiopia is the oldest continuously independent state in Africa that still exists today and one of the oldest in the world. The country name, which is widespread again today, goes back to an ancient Greek large-scale region designation which, in addition to the actual Abyssinia, also included the historical regions of Nubia , Sudan and parts of Libya : "Αιθιοπία", via aithiops ("with a burnt face"), from αίθαλο / aíthalo , "The tanned one" and οψ / ops , "the face". In Homer Ethiopia, where is Poseidon was staying, in the Odyssey mentioned.

Immigration

The Old Testament tells how the Queen of Sheba toured the city of Jerusalem . According to Ethiopian tradition, Menelik I , allegedly the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, founded the Ethiopian Empire. In fact, the Ethiopian empire was founded by the tribe of the Ḥbšt ( habashat / habeshtew ; Habescha ), from whose name the name "Abyssinia" developed, which dates back to the 1st millennium BC. Emigrated from southern Arabia, founded. Their capital Aksum was first mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD.

Empire of Aksum

According to the Acts of the Apostles of the Bible, Chapter 8, verses 26-39, the treasurer of the "Ethiopian" queen at that time became the first "Ethiopian" Christian. The Latin historian Rufinus of Aquileia reports on the origins of the church in today's Ethiopia : The brothers Frumentius and Aidesios were attacked on the Red Sea coast on their way home to Tire and sold to the court of the King of Aksum . Thanks to their Greek education, they became educators of the princes and imparted their Christian faith to the royal family. Frumentius later traveled to the Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius , and was consecrated by him as Bishop of Aksum. The conversion of King Ezana to Christianity in the first half of the 4th century is archaeologically documented by coin finds. Christianity becomes the state religion under Ezana . The empire of Axum , founded by the Semites, gains dominance over southern Arabia. With the expansion of Islam in the 7th century, Ethiopian Christianity is largely isolated from the influence of the world church, but maintains contact with the Coptic Church through its metropolitans sent from Egypt ( see also: Sultanate of Adal ).

middle Ages

Zagwe dynasty until 1270

With the decline of Christian shipping in the Red Sea , the cities in Aksum lost their importance. The empire of Aksum spread further south into the fertile highlands. New monasteries and churches were founded such as B. at Hayksee in the 8th century. The Agau , one of the indigenous peoples, learned Ge'ez and converted to Christianity. The princely families took power in the empire and founded the Zagwe dynasty . They moved the capital from Aksum to Roha in Lasta , where Emperor Lalibela (1185–1225) commissioned eleven rock- hewn churches , which today are among the largest man-made stone structures in the world.

Rule of the Solomonids

The supremacy of the Zagwe was repeatedly called into question because they were not of “Solomonic” descent (i.e. descendants of Solomon and Queen Sheba). In particular, the Tigray in the north and the Amharen in the south had never completely submitted. In 1270, Yekuno Amlak , a nobleman from Shewa Province , rebelled against the Zagwe and killed Emperor Yetbarak . Several influential church officials supported him by legitimizing him as Solomon's rightful successor. The descent of the Solomon dynasty from the firstborn son Solomon is also explained in the Kebra Negest , which originated at the end of the 13th century.

More and more people converted to Islam on the fringes of Ethiopian rule. At the end of the 13th century, the Ifat sultanate , which stretched over the eastern Shewa Plateau and the Awash Valley, conquered various Muslim sultanates on Ethiopia's southern border. The Ethiopian Emperor Amda Seyon I extended his borders further south and north to the Red Sea and also fought the Sultanate Ifat to the east. He secured the newly conquered regions with strategically placed garrisons and established a system of gults , similar to a feudal system in which the owner of a gult was allowed to claim tributes from the inhabitants. The high taxation of export goods, especially gold , ivory and slaves shipped from Ifat to Arabia, met with resistance. Amda Seyon and his successors reacted with brutal pacification actions that led to the conquest of the Awash valley and control of the trade routes to the port city of Zeila on the Gulf of Aden .

The expansion into non-Christian areas was accompanied by internal reforms and the consolidation of the Christian state. As heads of churches, the Solomonic rulers actively shaped the development of religious culture by building and embellishing churches, suppressing pagan practices and promoting the constitution of theological and dogmatic works. Relations between church and state were also characterized by conflict. In the Amhara region, where monasticism was revived, the monks had a difficult relationship with the new dynasty. They condemned the practice of polygyny practiced by the rulers . The conflict was not settled until the end of the 14th century through land donations to the monks. The monk Evostatewos (1273-1352) called for the church to detach itself from the pernicious influences of the state and to return to biblical teachings. He also advocated observing the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday in addition to Sunday - an idea already widespread in Ethiopia, which was officially enforced at the Council of Debre Mitmaq in 1450 . Emperor Zara Yaqob pushed ahead with further church reforms, remedied grievances through severe punishments and had heretical sect leaders executed. He also waged an unsuccessful campaign against the Falashes , a group of Agau-speaking Jews who practiced a form of Judaism detached from the Talmud .

Modern times

Early contacts with Europe

Ethiopia already had contact with Europe under Emperor David I (1382–1411), even if the travels through Muslim Egypt were difficult. There was an exchange of ideas with the Italian trading cities, especially Venice . During the reign of Zara-Jakob (1434–1468) an Ethiopian delegation even traveled to the Council of Florence at the request of Pope Eugene IV . The desire of the Europeans to take action against Islam together with the Ethiopians, however, met with little approval. Ethiopia was no match for the Muslim armed forces. In 1493 the Portuguese Pedro de Covilhão reached the court of the Negus. He was supposed to promote a Portuguese-Ethiopian alliance, as Portugal was beginning to establish its rule in the Indian Ocean at this time . Covilhão was treated with honor and Na'od I and David II gave him lands, but they stuck to the tradition that no stranger was allowed to leave the country. At least Covilhão was able to persuade the Negus to send the Armenian Matthew 1509 as an envoy to Lisbon .

Intervention by the Portuguese

It was not until 1520 that a Portuguese delegation, Rodrigo de Limas , was sent to the court of Ankober , who allegedly found Covilhão there in excellent health and married to an Ethiopian noblewoman. From 1541 to 1543, Portuguese auxiliaries under the son of Vasco da Gama , Cristóvão da Gama , supported the Ethiopians at the Negus' appeal for help against Ahmed Grañ , whom they inflicted several defeats on and whose reputation for invincibility they destroyed. The Portuguese intervention prevented the further consolidation of Grañ's position of power in the country and also gave the Negus valuable time to set up a new army, with which he finally defeated Grañ at the Battle of Wayna Daga . With Grañ's death in this battle - caused by a Portuguese rifleman - his recognizable intention to Islamize Ethiopia and permanently incorporate it into the Islamic sphere of influence was thwarted.

Expansion of the Oromo

In the meantime, the population pressure increased among the Oromo - a shepherd people living in the upper basin of the Juba (today southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya). The Oromic society was based on an age class system ( Gadaa ) in which all men born male pass through different stages of life in a rhythm of eight years. The warrior classes began long-distance expeditions in the 16th century and advanced into areas inhabited by Christians and Muslims. At the end of the 16th century the Oromo were so widespread in Ethiopia that Emperor Sarsa Dengel (1563–1597) was forced to withdraw to the north. His dominion now only included the northern regions of Tigray and Gondar, parts of Gojam, Shewa and Welo and the area of today's Eritreas, where a large part of Christian-Semitic-speaking farmers lived.

Catholicism

The Ethiopian Church, which had hardly recovered from the destruction and massive apostasy during the Islamic War of Faith , was meanwhile confronted with a new threat from the Roman Catholic Church . The Jesuit founder Ignatius von Loyola had sent missionaries together with the Portuguese musketeers to convert Ethiopia to the Western Church. One of the most successful of these, the Jesuit Pedro Páez , convinced Emperor Sissinios (1607–1632) and other courtiers to convert to Catholicism. The renunciation of faith led to violent resistance among the nobles, the church and the population. Sissinios had to abdicate in favor of his son Fasilides (1632–1667). The missionary Jesuits were expelled from the country for several centuries.

Early Gondarin era (1632–1769)

Fasilides founded the new capital Gondar north of Lake Tana , which was an important trading center and connected the inland with the coast. The city, which promoted art and science, reached its peak around 1700.

Until the reign of Empress Mentewwab (1730–1769), who ruled together with her son and grandson, Ethiopia flourished culturally for the last time. However, ethnic, regional and religious conflicts led to the collapse of the empire in 1769.

Era of the Princes (1769–1855)

During the so-called "prince's time", power shifted from the central imperial court to the regional principalities, which were at odds with one another. The rural population was oppressed - armies roamed around, plundered farmers' crops and devastated the land.

Ethiopia around 1850

In the Gibe basin , agricultural developments led to the emergence of Oromo and Sidama states . The Gonga also formed their own states in the Kaffa highlands west of the Omo . In the north of Shewa, another kingdom emerged from a younger branch of the Solomon dynasty , which experienced a considerable boom through trade with the Gibe states. Their king Sahle Selassie (1813–1847) and his successors extended their sphere of influence to the south and around 1840 ruled over a large part of the Shewa on the Awash to the south of the Gurage Mountains.

In the north Kassa Hailu was on the way to herald the end of the prince's time. Kassa, from Qwara Province , first served as a mercenary in Gojam, before he rose to become the leader of a band of robbers and built his own small army. In 1847 he had the trade and smuggling in the lowlands under control, so that Gondar was forced to ally with him. In 1853 Kassa defeated Ras Ali, one of the last powerful Oromo princes. After defeating the last independent ruler in the north, Wube Haile Maryam , Kassa was crowned Emperor of Abyssinia on February 11, 1855 under the name Theodor II. In the same year he marched south and subjugated the Shewa.

Colonialism and modernization

Unification of the empire in the 19th century

Then the first serious confrontation with the European nations took place in the course of colonialism . Theodor II resisted Turkish and English colonialism. Due to a diplomatic conflict with Great Britain, from 1865 onwards he successively took hostage all Europeans in his country who had previously mostly worked for him as craftsmen. This led to the liberation of the prisoners as part of the British Ethiopia Expedition of 1868 . After a far superior Indo-British expeditionary army under Robert Cornelis Napier landed in December 1867 , the Ethiopian emperor committed suicide in view of the hopeless situation during the Battle of Magdala in 1868.

Historical map with Abyssinia around 1891

Emperor Yohannes IV had helped the British and Egyptians evacuate their garrisons on the Sudanese-Ethiopian border during the Mahdi uprising . Fighting with the Mahdists had therefore already broken out in 1885. In 1887, the Ethiopian governor of Gondar, Ras Adar, launched an attack on the Mahdist-held Gallabat . Caliph Abdallahi ibn Muhammad , the leader of the Mahdists, then reinforced his troops under the command of Hamdan abu Anja . This invaded Ethiopia with 100,000 men. At Debre Sina there was a battle against 200,000 Ethiopians. Abu Anja won, was able to take and plunder Gondar. Caliph Abdullahi rejected the emperor's subsequent offer of peace. John IV then announced that he would pull against Khartoum . In March 1889, the Ethiopians, led by the emperor himself, attacked Sudan. The Battle of Metemma took place near Gallabat on March 9th . 150,000 Ethiopians attacked 80,000 Mahdists. When a defeat for the Mahdists became apparent, the emperor was fatally hit by a stray bullet. The Ethiopian troops withdrew. The Mahdists took off and there was a second battle on the Atbara River . The Ethiopians were put to flight and the emperor's body fell into the hands of the Mahdists. The war ended when the caliph did not have the military strength to take advantage of this victory. The caliph refused an alliance offer from Emperor Menelik II , successor to Yohannes, against the Europeans.

Expansion under Menelik II.

The actual founder of modern Ethiopia was Menelik II (emperor from 1889 to 1913). Through his policy of modernization, which culminated in the victory over the Italians at Adua in 1896, he saved the country from European colonialism .

Italian attempts at colonization 1887–1941

Italian defeat in the Battle of Dogali (1887)

Italian defeat at the Battle of Adua (1896)

At the end of the 19th century, the expansion of the Italian colonial power followed, starting from the colony of Eritrea . The Treaty of Ucciali , concluded in 1889, was initially intended to regulate relations in a peaceful manner. But in contrast to the Amharic version, the Italian translation was tantamount to a foreign policy incapacitation of Ethiopia and thus declared it de facto a protectorate . Despite these ambivalences, Italian diplomacy managed to assign Ethiopia to Italy as an area of influence at the Congo Conference in 1885. The Italian army finally marched into Ethiopia under the pretext of minor border incidents on the Ethiopian-Eritrean border.

A first attempt at conquest failed in the Battle of Dogali in 1887, in 1896 the Italian plans failed again for the time being: Despite the clear superiority of the modern weapons of the Italians, the decisive battle of Adua on March 1, 1896 ended in favor of the Ethiopian armed forces . In the Treaty of Addis Ababa , Italy had to give up its colonial dreams on October 26, 1896, the independence of the empire was maintained until the renewed attack by fascist Italy in 1936 (see below).

The securing of independence was followed by a phase of consolidation of imperial power in the interior, mainly through conquests in the south of today's national territory. These newly conquered areas fell under an archaic-feudal system of land grabbing, which lasted until the socialist land reform in the 1970s and which permanently alienated the Oromo people living there from the conquerors. The conditions in these areas, which were characterized by a relationship between landowners and the local population similar to serfdom, as well as the denunciation of these conditions by the Italian government initially prevented diplomatic recognition of the empire by the European powers. Only after this form of slavery was abolished was it allowed to join the League of Nations on September 28, 1923 . However, this did not guarantee the sovereignty of the state.

Contemporary developments

Haile Selassie 1930–1974

After the overthrow of Iyasu V , chosen by Menelik II as his successor , Haile Selassie was first regent in 1916, then emperor in 1930. In 1931 the country's first constitution, officially the 1931 Constitution of the Abyssinian Empire , was enacted. However, Benito Mussolini's expansion plans culminated in another - now successful - invasion in 1935. The invasion could not be prevented by the half-hearted sanctions of the League members, especially since the crucial oil embargo did not materialize. By means of the superior strength of weapons (tanks, but above all the use of poison gas) and the experience from the first armed conflict, Addis Ababa fell in the Italian-Ethiopian War within a very short time. Instead of the Negus, the Italian king took over the Ethiopian imperial title. Since the Italian army never controlled the entire country, including the mountainous regions that were difficult to access, Ethiopian historiography sees Italian rule only as a partial and temporary occupation, while Ethiopia continues to be the only African country that was never a colony. The nevertheless real existing Italian colonial administration made Ethiopia a part of Italian East Africa and divided it up within it (Ogaden to Italian Somaliland, Tigray to Eritrea). She committed massive atrocities and set up concentration camps. The massacres killed 30,000 people in the capital alone.

In the following years, Emperor Haile Selassie sought foreign support for a program of modernization in the country, without, however , revising the autocratic features of his rule or the feudal social structure, especially in the south.

Socialist military dictatorship 1974–1991

At the beginning of the 1970s, the empire fell into a serious crisis. The impoverished peasants suffered from the taxes they paid to the large landowners, and the aspiring middle class of Addis Ababa saw their opportunities for political development restricted. Inflation in the wake of the 1973 drought and the oil crisis triggered mass demonstrations by students and waves of strikes in Ethiopia.

The student movement of the Haile Selassie University (today: Addis Ababa University ) is considered to be the main initiator of these protests. Influenced by left-wing ideas from East and West, but also from other African countries, which despite colonialism have made greater progress in political and economic development, dissatisfaction with corruption and political repression erupted. Finally, at the beginning of 1974, parts of the Ethiopian army also revolted. The lower ranks in particular were mostly from rural areas and knew the plight of the rural population. This brought about the decisive power shift.

Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown on September 12, 1974. The military quickly seized the revolution, the student movement split into an ethnic and a socialist opposition, some went underground and led an armed resistance. Within the military, the moderate representatives, mostly higher ranks, could not assert themselves. A provisional military councilor called Derg took power under the leadership of Major Mengistu Haile Mariam . In 1975 the monarchy was abolished and the former imperial socialist people's republic. This led to the Ethiopian Civil War .

The “red terror” (1975), which almost completely eliminated the socialist student opposition, was soon followed by military conflicts with neighboring states, most of which, however, date back to the imperial era. In 1977/1978, with the support of the Soviet Union and Cuba, an invasion of US- backed Somalia in the Ogaden, which is mainly inhabited by ethnic Somalis, was repulsed. In fact, with the support of the Eastern Bloc, the Derg soon had the nominally largest army in sub-Saharan Africa - around 300,000 men. However, the combat strength of this army, which consisted largely of force-recruited peasants, was too weak to withstand the armed resistance inside. Because of the excessive repression against the civilian population, Eritrean separatists gained increasing support. An alliance with regional resistance groups, mainly from the northern province of Tigray, gradually turned the tide to the disadvantage of the Derg.

In 1984, Ethiopia came into the spotlight of the world public through a report on BBC television about the famine in Ethiopia 1984–1985 . Years of lack of rainfall in the Sahel zone led to crop failures and famine in twenty African countries . Because of the ongoing civil war, Ethiopia was hardest hit by this disaster. Nearly 20,000 children died of malnutrition every month.

In 1987 the Derg rule in Ethiopia was formally ended and a new constitution was introduced, the constitution of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia . The country was thus transformed into a people's republic under the one-party rule of the Labor Party of Ethiopia . Lieutenant Mengistu Haile Mariam was elected president by the parliament in the 1987 elections.

Democratization since 1991

UNMEE soldiers in Eritrea

In 1991 - without the help of the Soviet Union - the regime finally collapsed. On May 28, troops of the Revolutionary Democratic Front of the Ethiopian Peoples took Addis Ababa and Prime Minister (now Colonel) Mengistu Haile Mariam fled to Zimbabwe . Under the interim government of Meles Zenawis , the transitional government of Ethiopia , Eritrea gained independence in April 1993 after almost 30 years of war.

In 1995 the entire state system was politically reorganized. The country was democratized and federalized at the same time. The question of power between the individual peoples in the country was now also regulated fairly. Each larger people received its own federal state with its own working language, institutions and constitutions. A political coalition, the Revolutionary Democratic Front of the Ethiopian Peoples, led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front , took over government.

War and peace agreement with Eritrea

Border disputes and presumably also economic disputes, however, led again to the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea in May 1998 , in which both countries were able to maintain roughly the status quo ante two years later with great losses , although there was another drought and famine in the same period . Around 45,000 Eritreans living in Ethiopia were deported to Eritrea by the end of 1998. From 2000 to 2008 soldiers of the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) monitored a fragile peace, while an independent border commission was supposed to settle the disputes in 2002. The disputed area around Badme was awarded to Eritrea. Ethiopia refused to accept the Commission's decision until 2018; Eritrea, in turn, regularly interfered with the activities of UNMEE. On June 5, 2018, the newly elected Ethiopian government accepted the provisions of the 2002 border agreement, including handing Badme over to Eritrea. On July 8, 2018, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that Ethiopia and Eritrea would resume diplomatic relations . At the same time a peace treaty was concluded between the two countries.

literature

Wilhelm Baum : Ethiopia and the West in the Middle Ages. The self-assertion of Christian culture on the Upper Nile between the Islamic Orient and European colonialism . Kitab Verlag, Klagenfurt 2001, ISBN 3-902005-06-8 (Introductions to Oriental Christianity; 2)
Paul B. Henze: Layers of Time. A History of Ethiopia . Hurst, London 2000, ISBN 1-85065-393-3 .
Bahru Zewde: A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1974 . Addis Ababa University Press, Addis Ababa, 1991.

Web links

Commons : History of Ethiopia - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Hans-Albert Bruns: From the land that Poseidon loved. Jewelry from Ethiopia. In: Materia Medica Nordmark. Volume 20, No. 12, December 1968, p. 672 ff., Here: p. 672.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Harold G. Marcus, Assefa Mehretu, et al .: Ethiopia. History. The Zagwe and Solomonic dynasties . In: Encyclopædia Britannica .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Harold G. Marcus, Assefa Mehretu, et al .: Ethiopia. History. Challenge, revival, and decline (16th – 19th century) . In: Encyclopædia Britannica .
^ University of Edinburgh / Center for African Studies, Sarah Vaughan: The Addis Ababa Transitional Conference of July 1991: Its Origins, History and Significance , 1994
↑ Ethiopia 'accepts peace deal' to end Eritrea border war. BBC News, June 5, 2018, accessed June 6, 2018 .
^ After a long border war: Ethiopia and Eritrea establish diplomatic relations. In: FAZ. July 8, 2018, accessed July 8, 2018 .
↑ Ethiopia and Eritrea make peace. Time online from July 9, 2018

[1] Hans-Albert Bruns: From the land that Poseidon loved. Jewelry from Ethiopia. In: Materia Medica Nordmark. Volume 20, No. 12, December 1968, p. 672 ff., Here: p. 672.

[brit_zagwe-2] Harold G. Marcus, Assefa Mehretu, et al .: Ethiopia. History. The Zagwe and Solomonic dynasties . In: Encyclopædia Britannica .

[brit_challenge-3] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Harold G. Marcus, Assefa Mehretu, et al .: Ethiopia. History. Challenge, revival, and decline (16th – 19th century) . In: Encyclopædia Britannica .

[4] University of Edinburgh / Center for African Studies, Sarah Vaughan: The Addis Ababa Transitional Conference of July 1991: Its Origins, History and Significance , 1994

[5] Ethiopia 'accepts peace deal' to end Eritrea border war. BBC News, June 5, 2018, accessed June 6, 2018 .

[6] After a long border war: Ethiopia and Eritrea establish diplomatic relations. In: FAZ. July 8, 2018, accessed July 8, 2018 .

[7] Ethiopia and Eritrea make peace. Time online from July 9, 2018