Ethiopia, the Basics

thanks for the web page that you made (http://sellassie.ourfamily.com/histor/basics.html). it provided me with the right information to tell my history teacher that she was wrong. I am part Ethiopian and knew that Ethiopia was the only country in Africa to not be colonized by Europe. she was also saying how Mussolini's army defeated the Ethiopian army with tanks and the Ethiopians only had bows and arrows, sticks and rocks to use as weapons. I also knew that was not true through information I have read about or heard from my dad. I just need some written proof that it was not true. so tomorrow I can go to her and make her apologize for being so ignorant as to not check her facts before telling the class. thanks again. Susan

The text is not mine (sometimes questinable, but academic). Historical overview of the last 150 years of Ethiopian history. For more details visit History Road, which mainly focuses on Haile Sellassie's life. Also, the new directory HISTORY.

from Guide and Index to Lists of Rulers, Note 1

Isaiah 2:3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 2:4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Ethiopia

A significant traditional "empire" left out of the lists discussed above is Ethiopia, which had few pretentions to universality, but was in the Middle Eastern tradition of universalist titles, since the Ethiopian emperor was styled the Negus Negast, the "king of kings," as was the king of Assyria (Shar Sharim) and the shâhs of Persia and Iran (Xshayathiya Xshayathiyanam, Shâhanshâh). Ethiopia was its own kind of cultural island universe for centuries, a beleaguered bastion of Christianity in an isolating sea of Islâm, a successor, not just to the Middle Eastern traditions through Yemen, but to the original Ethiopia of the Greeks, the sub-Egyptian kingdom of Kush, which began with the Egyptian 25th Dynasty (751-656 BC), from Piankhy to Tanuatamun, and which, although driven out of Egypt by the Assyrians, flourished at Napata (where pyramids were actually built) and Meroë for many centuries. Indeed, the highland Ethiopia, or Abyssinia, itself brought the kingdom of Meroë to an end, around 355 AD.

Menelik I	mythic son of Solomon & the Queen of Sheba
Ella Amida	end of 3rd century AD
Ezanas	c.303-350+(?)
Frumentius first Coptic Bishop of Ethiopia, c.305
Caleb, Ella Asbeha	c.500-534
At Roman urging, Ethiopians install a Christian king in Yemen, 523-525
Lalibela	c.1185-1225
Yitbarek	?-1270
Solomonic Dynasty
Yekuno Amlak	1270-?
Amda Siyon	1314-1344
Dawit I	1380-1412
Tewodros I	1412-1413
Zara Yakob	1434-1468
Baeda Mariam	1468-1478
Naod	1494-1508
Lebna Dengel	1508-1540
Galawedos	1540-1559
Moslems allied to Turkey defeated, with Portuguese help, Battle of Lake Tana, 1543
Sarsa Dengel	1563-1597
Za Dengel	1603-1604
Susneyos	1607-1632
Fasilidas	1632-1667
Iyasu I the Great	1682-1706
Yohannes I	1667-1682
Tekle Haimanot I	1706-1708
Tewoflos	1708-1711
Yostos	1711-1716
Dawit III	1716-1721
Bekaffa	1721-1730
Iyasu II	1730-1755
Iyoas	1755-1769
Yohannes II	1769
Tekle Haimanot II	1769-1777
Salomon III	1777-1779
Tekle Giorgis I	1779-1784, 1788-1789, 1794-1795, 1795-1796, 1797-1799, 1800
Yohannes III	1840-1855
Tewodros (Theodore) II	1855-1868
takes diplomats hostage; British Expedition, defeat & suicide of Tewodros, 1868
Tekle Giorgis II	1868-1872
Yohannes IV	1872-1889
Egyptians defeated, driven out of Eritrea, Battle of Gundet, 1875, Battle of Gura, 1876
Menilek (Menelik) II	1889-1913
Italians defeated, Battle of Adwa, 1896
Lij Iyasu	regent 1909-1913, 1913-1916 (d. 1935)
Empress Zawditu	1916-1930
Haile Sellassie (Ras Tafari Makonnen)	regent 1916-1930, 1930-1936
Italian Occupation
Victor Emmanuel (III, of Italy) styled "Emperor of Ethiopia"	1936-1941
Haile Sellassie (restored)	1941-1974 (d. 1975)
Mengistu Haile Mariam	dictator, 1977-1991

Note 2? ...

Christianity

The partial list of rulers at right is largely gleaned from A History of Ethiopia, by Harold G. Marcus [University of California Press, 1994].

After centuries of isolation by Islâm, an important chapter in the history of Ethiopia came when the Portuguese appeared in the Indian Ocean. They had heard rumors of a mythical Christian kingdom, ruled by the "Prester John," and soon found the place that seemed to fit the description:  Ethiopia. Portuguese influence stimulated and aided Ethiopia at a time when it was under serious threat from the triumphant Ottoman Empire. Portuguese firearms, delivered after an appeal for help by the Emperor Lebna Dengel in 1535, enabled the Emperor Galawedos to defeat the Imam of Harer, leader of Moslem forces, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim, who was killed in a great battle in 1543. Portuguese influence, however, was ultimately rejected, since Ethiopia was religiously Coptic and Monophysite, not Roman Catholic.

Modernity

1. Ethiopia may have been backward, but it was a vastly more sophisticated state than anything else in sub-Saharan Africa. Menelik was able to mobilize an army of 100,000 men. As it happened, the Italian force, largely Eritreans trained by Italy, was only 35,000.
2. This army was equipped with modern weapons thanks to Ethiopia's relationship with France. The Italians seem to have been unaware, out of a not uncommon European arrogance at the time, that the Ethiopians could put so many men in the field, or that they could be so well equipped.
3. The Italians made one final miscalculation. They unfortunately scheduled an early morning surprise attack on the Ethiopian force for a Sunday, not realizing that Coptic Mass was held at 4 AM!

In the face of Italian aggression, France abandoned its diplomatic and material support of Ethiopia. France and Britain decided that an arms embargo on "all belligerents" was the moral response to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia; and the Italians, who of course made their own arms, actually used poison gas against Ethiopian forces. Thus, Ethiopia fell to Mussolini, not because it was backward, like the Congo, but because it was abandoned, like Czechoslovakia. After Italy entered World War II, however, the liberation of Ethiopia was set in motion, and the Italians, who had committed many atrocities against the constant resistance of the Ethiopian people during the occupation, were easily defeated.

In its long isolation, Ethiopia produced from the old South Arabian alphabet a unique and beautiful syllabary, which is still used to write modern languages like Amharic. This contributed one rich aspect to the island universe of Ethiopian civilization.

Since there are now "afrocentrist" claims current that the Ethiopic alphabet was not based on the old South Arabian alphabet, it is worth comparing the two in the table at right. Not only are many of the letters obviously identical, but Ethiopic even preserves most of the South Arabian alphabetical order, which is distinct from the one that we find in Hebrew, Greek, or Arabic. Ethiopic also made some of the same slight alterations in the ancient letters as Greek, producing recognizable counterparts to lambda, omicron, and theta.

Why it is thought necessary to take something already splendid and extraordinary and trivialize it with exaggerated claims is sad but not surprising, since it is of a piece with many examples of inflated ethnic (in this case racial) self-importance, as I have noted elsewhere in regard to the Assyrians.

Copyright (c) 1998, 1999 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D.

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African Timeline

2,000,000 BC-Earliest stone tools in Ethiopia and East Africa 
35,000 BC-Homo Sapiens in East Africa 
8,000 BC-First settlements in Nile Delta, Sahara fertile enough for human occupation 
7,000 BC-Earliest cave drawings in Sahara 
2,530 BC-Great Pyramids built in Egypt 
1,000 BC-Nok Culture in Nigeria 
332 BC-Alexander the Great conquers Egypt 
100 AD-Camels introduced to North Africans for trans-Saharan trade 
100-200 AD-East African coast starts trading with Romans and Arabs 
350 AD-South East Asian crops start growing in Eastern Africa, eg. Bananas & yams 
600-700 AD-Ethiopia threatened by Muslims, Isolated from Christian Europe 
646 AD-Egypt conquered by Arabs 
650 AD-Use of iron increases in Africa 
800 AD-Trans-Saharan trade expands 
1000 AD-Islam established south of Sahara 
1087 AD-Muslims invade Ghana 
1150 AD-Slaves were exported to North Africa from New Guinea 
1352 AD-Ibn Battuta visits Mali 
1500 AD-Compound houses on steep hillsides built by Dogon people in Mali 
1807 AD-British ban slave trade 
1874 AD-Discovery of diamonds in South Africa 
1880-1900 AD-First major railways built in East and South Africa 

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