Menelik II's Conquests

Menelik II's conquests, also known as the Agar Maqnat (), were a series of late 19th-century military campaigns led by Emperor Menelik II of Shewa to expand the territory of the Ethiopian Empire.

Emerging from a fragmented Abyssinian highland polity, Menelik—who had ascended to power in 1866—began, a decade later, to capitalize on growing centralization efforts, an increasing militarized state apparatus, and substantial arms imports from European powers to launch a wave of expansive and often violent annexations across the south, west, and east of the Horn of Africa beginning in the early 1880s. These campaigns, conducted largely by Amhara forces from Shewa, mirrored European colonial practices—such as indirect rule, settler militarism, and land dispossession—and were frequently justified by Menelik as part of a Christianizing civilizing mission. Central to the imperial structure in many southern regions was the ''neftenya-gabbar'' system, a settler-colonial arrangement that established Amhara dominance over newly incorporated regions through land grants, taxation, and forced labor.

Menelik's expansionist drive transformed Ethiopia into one of the few African empires participating in the Scramble for Africa. While it preserved its sovereignty against European colonization—most notably through victory in the First Italo-Ethiopian War—the empire's growth was achieved through serious violence and repression that many historians today characterize as genocidal.

The dramatic increase in Ethiopia’s size and helped establish Menelik's legacy as the architect of the modern Ethiopian state.Richard Pankhurs
The Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century – Google Books"
1997. p. 284. The enduring social, political, and cultural legacies of these conquests have had a profound effect on Ethiopian state formation and interethnic relations, with consequences that continue to shape the country's internal conflicts into the present day.

Background

After a period of disunity, much of the 19th century saw the reign of two Abyssinian monarchs, Tewodros II (1855–68) and Yohannes IV (1871–89), who progressively centralized the state. The third and last emperor of the century, Menelik II, the King of Abyssinia's Shewa region, managed to bring all of northern Abyssinia under his control and subsequently embarked on a massive expansion of the Ethiopian Empire. From the late 1880s, he dispatched armies and colonists across the west, south, and southeast. In the centuries prior to this, both the Oromo and Somali people were usually successful in containing Abyssinian expansion. Menelik's imperialism was culmination of a century of Abyssinian militarization. His army had expanded to such a degree that continual raiding and pillaging became a core feature of the empire, necessary to keep the youthful and armed population preoccupied.

Menelik's expansions coincided with the era of European colonial advances in the Horn of Africa, during which the Ethiopian Empire received significant military resources from foreign powers. France in particular poured in arms into the country during the 1880s, alongside Russia and Italy; seeking to secure favor for protectorate status over the empire. During the earliest periods of Menelik's expansions in the 1870s, he was receiving military advice and aid from France. The influx of military equipment facilitated Emperor Menelik's unprecedented campaign of Amhara conquest and expansion. The Emperor conveyed to his European counterparts his 'sacred civilizing mission' to extend the benefits of Christian rule to the 'heathens'.

Menelik became a signatory to the Brussels Act of 1890, which regulated the importation of arms into the African continent. Italy sponsored Ethiopia's inclusion in this act, enabling Abyssinia to "legally" import arms. This move also served to legitimize the arms shipments that had been ongoing for years prior from France. Thus, when conflict later began with the Italians during the First Italo-Ethiopian War of 1895–96, the Ethiopian Empire had accrued a significant number of modern weapons that allowed them to fight on similar terms as the European powers and maintain expansion. British writer Evelyn Waugh describing this nineteenth century event stated:
Under Menelik II, the Ethiopian Empire effectively participated in the Scramble for Africa alongside European powers. While at times rivaling Europeans present in the Horn of Africa (notably Italy), it entered into agreements and treaties with European colonialists over spheres of influence, much like the ones the competing foreigner powers had made among themselves.

Menelik's imperial strategy

The Ethiopian Empire under Menelik II exhibited many classic features of European colonialism, including indirect rule, divide-and-rule tactics, cooptation of local elites, and prioritizing the interests of settlers above all else. The imperial expansion closely mirrored the colonial expansions of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires. During the 1870s and 1880s, Menelik received advice from the French on managing a standing army and governing captured provinces using colonial methods.

A system of imperial conquest effectively based on settler colonialism, involving the deployment of armed settlers in newly created military colonies, was widespread throughout the southern and western territories that came under Menelik's dominion. Under the 'Neftenya-Gabbar scheme' the Ethiopian Empire had developed a relatively effective system of occupation and pacification. Soldier-settlers and their families moved into fortified villages known as ''katamas'' in strategic regions to secure the southern expansion. These armed settlers and their families were known as the ''neftenya'' and peasant farmers who were assigned to them the ''gabbar''.

The Neftenya () were assigned gabbar from the locally conquered population, who effectively worked in serfdom for the conquerors. The majority of the neftenya were Amhara from Shewa. The neftenya-gabbar relationship was a 'feudal-like patron client relationship' between the northern settlers and southern locals. As land was taken, the northern administrators became the owners and possessed the right to dispose of land as they pleased. Those conquered found themselves displaced, often reduced to tenants on their own lands by the new Amhara ruling elite. The feudal obligations imposed on the gabbar were so intensive that they continued to serve the family of a neftegna even after the latter's death. The gabbar system worked efficiently for nearly half a century in financing the garrisoning and administration of the south until its formal dissolution in 1941. It was not employed in all parts of the regions Menelik expanded into for varying reasons. In the case of many southern lowlands 'fringes', the territory was not suitable for colonization by the Shewan highlander plough agriculturalists and the lowland pastoralists were far harder to manage and control than the settled horticulturalists of the southern highlands. These regions were instead raided for revenue extraction, often in the form of livestock, into the 20th century.

Though some polities negotiated differing levels of autonomy through tribute payments and taxation, elsewhere local populations were frequently decimated by violent colonial expansions that rested largely on cultural assimilation. Due to economic motives driving the northern expansions, it was usually preferred to disturb indigenous economies as little as possible in regions where there was little resistance. Extreme violence was carried out during the conquest of regions like the Kingdoms of Wolaita and Kaffa to the south, along with Illubabor and other territories in the Sudanese borderlands. Military expeditions into the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region under Ras Makonnen were characterized by massacres and expropriation, laying foundations for future incorporation into the Ethiopian Empire. University of Oxford Professor of African History Richard Reid observes, "Menelik's empire was as brutally violent and as reliant on the atrocity-as-method genre of imperialism as the European colonial projects developing apace on Menelik's borders."

Early conquests and conflicts

Shewan expansion had started before Menelik, as rulers of the region had started a southward thrust against the Oromo in the early part of the 19th century. During the first half of the 1880s, then king of Shewa Sahla Selassie conducted numerous military expeditions against the Oromo people residing on the Shewan plateau. This led to conflicts with the Muslims in the region one notably led by Argobba leader Talha Jafar. Menelik's first battles to expand the empire occurred when he was still under the nominal authority of Emperor Yohannes IV during the 1870s. With Menelik's incorporations of Wollo to his north during the late 1870s, all of the central region had been consolidated. Menelik dispatched an army against Gojjam to the east and achieved a victory. Emperor Yohannes punished Menelik and the ruler of Gojjam for going to war by taking away parts of their regions, but recognized 'Menelik's right to the south-west.' Having secured the watershed to his south-west, Menelik turn his attention to the Muslim inhabited south-east.

During this early period of expansion, Menelik brought the provincial nobility that traditionally dominated Abyssinia under his rule. The predominantly Christian northern provinces often fared better than the Muslim or pagan areas taken over by Menelik in the south, largely because they were less frequented by the Emperors large armies and the inhabitants were better armed to defend themselves.

Hadiya

In the late 1870s Menelik led a campaign to incorporate the lands of Hadiya which included the Gurage people into Shewa. In 1878, the Soddo Gurage living in Northern and Eastern Gurageland peacefully submitted to Menelik and their lands were left untouched by his armies, likely due to their shared Ethiopian Orthodox faith and prior submission to Negus Sahle Selassie, grandfather of the Emperor. However, in Western Gurage and Hadiya which was inhabited by the Sebat Bet, Kebena, and Wolane fiercely resisted Menelik. They were led by Hassan Enjamo of Kebena who on the advice of his sheiks declared jihad against the Shewans. For over a decade Hassan Injamo fought to expel the Shewans from the Muslim areas of Hadiya and Gurage until 1888 when Gobana Dacche faced him in the Battle of Jebdu Meda where the Muslim Hadiya and Gurage army was defeated by the Shewans, and with that all of Gurageland was subdued.. Professor Lapiso states that the assistance of Habte Giyorgis Dinagde who was captured from a previous battle with the Hadiyans was instrumental for the Abyssinians being victorious in the conflict.

The Halaba Hadiya however under their chief Barre Kagaw continued to resist until 1893 when the Abyssinians took advantage of the famine that had struck the region and led a conquest into their territory.

Welega

By the early 1880s, Shewan and Gojjam forces had made their first forays over the Gibe River into the region of Welega ruled by king Kumsa Moroda from the Machaa people of the Oromo. Ras Gobena, an Oromo general serving Menelik, arrived in the region at the head of a well armed force of Shewan troops. Menelik's primary motive in conquering Welega was control over the gold producing districts in the west. Ras Gobenas campaigns in Western Welega from 1886 to 1888 established Shewan rule over the entire region and ended the threat of Mahdist incursions. Menelik's success in these Oromo regions were in great measure due to Ras Gobena, with his large cavalry force he conquered and extracted tribute from Oromo leaders for the Shewan court.

The Great Drought of 1888-92 allowed Menelik to draw on the masses of Amhara peasantry. With them he assembled an immense army that swept outwards from Shewa in search of spoils and tribute.

Colonization and resistance of Oromo

As the Abyssinian armies pushed south into land inhabited by the Oromo people (the Galla land), the determined resistance of many Oromo groups was incapable of stopping the heavily armed invaders. One after the other, the Oromo people suffered defeat with the exception of the Arsi people. Unlike the peasantry in the Christian north, the peoples of southern Ethiopia during Meneliks time were largely too poorly armed to resist his riflemen. Menelik's campaign against the Arsi were among his bloodiest and most sustained efforts. After a series of military campaigns over several years they were finally subjugated by Shewan firepower.

Conflicts between the Kingdom of Shewa and the Arsi Oromo date back to the 1840s when Sahle Selassie led an expedition against the Arsi. Shewans rulers had longed to pacify and incorporate this territory into their realm. In 1881, Menelik led a campaign against the Arsi Oromo, this campaign proved difficult, as the Oromos abandoned their homeland to wage guerilla war against the Shewan army, the Arsi inflicted significant losses against Menelik's forces through ambushes and raids. Menelik eventually left Arsi territory and his uncle Darge Sahle Selassie was left in charge of the campaign. In September 1886, Darge faced a large Arsi force at the Battle of Azule, the result was an overwhelming Shewan victory as the Arsi Oromo were completely defeated by the Shewan army. After the defeat of the Arsi at Azule the province of Arsi was pacified and Darge was named its governor. After six military campaigns, during 1887 the Arsi finally were brought under the rule of Menelik. After the conquest, much of the best Arsi grazing land was given as war booty to soldiers. Arsi Oromo during the 1960s spoke of the era of Amhara rule beginning after their subjection in 1887 as the start of an 'era of miseries'.

The Oromo population was significantly reduced from massacres. Many Oromo were forcibly Christianized and compelled to 'Amharize' their names. From the initial raids Menelik and his commanders had seized thousands of prisoners, resulting in an increase in slavery on the domestic and international market. Four years after the conquest of the Arsi, foreign travelers passing through their regions noted that they were regarded as slaves by the new rulers and in sold openly in markets. The campaigns during 1885 in Ittu Oromo territory that had preceded the occupation of Harar left whole tracts of their territory depopulated.

Annexation of Harar

From 1883 to 1885 the Shewan forces under Menelik were attempting to invade the Chercher region of Harar and were defeated by the Ittu Oromo. During 1886, Menelik had started embarking on a large scale campaign to subjugate the south. In 1886 an Italian explorer and his entire party were massacred by soldiers from the Emirate of Harar, giving the Emperor an excuse to invade the Emirate of Harar. The Shewans then led an invasion force, however when this force was camped in Hirna the small army of Emir Abdullah II shot fireworks at the encampment, startling the Shewans and making them flee towards the Awash River during the Battle of Hirna.

Menelik first used the significant influx of European arms he received at Harar. Harar was the most prominent of all the independent emirates and sultanates in the region. Menelik wrote to European powers: "Ethiopia has been for 14 centuries a Christian island in a sea of pagans. If Powers at a distance come forward to partition Africa between them, I do not intend to remain an indifferent spectator." He sent word to Emir Abdullah, ruler of the historic city of Harar which was pivotal to Muslim East Africa, to accept his suzerainty. The Emir suggested that Menelik should accept Islam. Menelik promised to conquer Harar and turn the principal mosque into a church, saying "I will come to Harar and replace the Mosque by a Christian church. Await me." The Medihane Alam Church is proof Menelik kept his word.

In 1887 the Shewans sent another large force personally led by Menelik II to subjugate the Emirate of Harar. Emir Abdullah, in the Battle of Chelenqo, decided to attack early in the morning of Ethiopian Christmas assuming they would be unprepared and befuddled with food and alcohol, but was defeated as Menelik had awoken his army early expecting a surprise attack. The Emir then fled to the Ogaden and the Shewans conquered Hararghe. Finally having conquered Harar, Menelik extended trade routes through the city, importing valuable goods such as arms, and exporting other valuables such as coffee. He would place his cousin, Makonnen Wolde Mikael in control of the city. Harari oral tradition recounts 300 Hafiz and 700 newly wed soldiers killed by Menelik's forces in the short battle. The remembrance of the seven hundred "wedded martyrs" became part of Harari wedding customs to this day, when every Harari groom is given fabric that is called "satti baqla" in Harari, which means "seven hundred." It's a rectangular cloth from white woven cotton ornamented with a red stripe along the edges symbolizing the martyrs' murders. When he presents it, the giver (who usually is the paternal uncle of the woman's father), whispers in the ear of the groom: "So that you do not forget.

The largest Mosque in Harar (known as Sheikh Bazikh, "The capital Mosque," or Raoûf), located in Faras Magala, and the local Madrassa were turned into churches, notably "Medhane Alem church" in 1887 by Menelik II after the conquest.

Conquest of Wolaita and Kaffa kingdoms

Wolaita

In 1890 Menelik invaded the Kingdom of Wolaita. The war of conquest has been described by Bahru Zewde as "one of the bloodiest campaigns of the whole period of expansion", and Wolayta oral tradition holds that 118,000 Welayta and 90,000 Shewan troops died in the fighting.Sarah Vaughan
"Ethnicity and Power in Ethiopia"
(University of Edinburgh: Ph.D. Thesis, 2003), p. 253. Kawo (King) Tona Gaga, the last king of Welayta, was defeated and Welayta conquered in 1895. Welayta was then incorporated into the Ethiopian Empire. However, Welayta had a form of self-administrative status and was ruled by governors directly accountable to the king until the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.

Kaffa

The Kingdom of Kaffa was a powerful kingdom located south of the Gojeb river in the dense jungles of the Kaffa mountains. Due to constant invasions from the Mecha Oromos, the Kafficho people developed a very unique defense system unlike anything seen in the Horn of Africa. The Kafficho built very deep trenches (Hiriyoo) and ditches (Kuripoa) along the borders of the kingdom to prevent intruders from entering. They also used natural barriers such the Gojeb River and the mountains to repel invaders. As a result, Kaffa earned a reputation of being impenetrable and inaccessible to outsiders.

In 1895 Menelik II ordered the Kingdom of Kaffa to be invaded and sent three armies led by Dejazmach Tessema Nadew, Ras Wolde Giyorgis and Dejazmach Demissew Nassibu supported by Abba Jifar II of Jimma (who submitted to Menelik) to conquer the mountainous kingdom. Gaki Sherocho the king of Kaffa hid in the hinterlands of his kingdom and resisted the armies of Menelik II until he was captured in 1897 and exiled to Addis Ababa. After the kingdom was conquered Ras Wolde Giyorgis was named its governor.

Expansion into Ogaden

After conquering the city of Harar in 1887, Menelik announced a programme of ambitious expansions and colonialism to the European powers in 1891. This marked the start of a tentative yet violent invasion into the Ogaden. The emperor coveted not only Harar, but the cities of Zeila and Hargeisa – along with other great regions belonging to the Somalis. In the first phase of invasion, Menelik dispatched troops on frequent raids that terrorized the region. Indiscriminate killing and looting was commonplace before the raiding soldiers returned to their bases with stolen livestock. Repeatedly between 1890 and 1900, Ethiopian raiding parties into the Ogaden caused devastation. The large scale importations of European arms completely upset the balance of power between the Somalis and the Ethiopian Empire, whereas the colonial powers from Europe blocked Somalis from receiving any type of firearms.

Many of the Somali clans in British Somaliland signed protection treaties with the British in response to these invasions, which dictated the protection of Somali rights and the maintenance of their independence. In 1897, in order to appease Menelik's expansionist policy, Britain ceded almost half of the British Somaliland protectorate to Ethiopia in the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897. Ethiopian authorities have since then based their claims to the Ogaden upon the 1897 treaty and the exchange of letters which followed it. The 1897 treaty was legally void because it presumed an authority which the Somalis had never accorded to Great Britain, as agreements that had been signed between the British and Somali had been to protect lands.

While previous Ethiopian raids had been primarily disruptive to trade, Emperor Meneliks well armed incursions in the era of colonialism provoked significant unease among the Somalis all the way to the Banaadir coast. A force of several thousand Ethiopian horseman armed with rifles pushed into the Shabelle valley near Balad, only a days march away from Mogadishu during the spring of 1905. Several clans residing in the region engaged in battles with the invading forces, repulsing them. In several cases, the poorly armed Somali warriors devastated the invading armies. In 1893, British Army officer Colonel Swayne, who was visiting Imi was shown "the remains of the bivouac of an enormous Abyssinian army which had been defeated some two or three years before."

In the far eastern frontier, predominantly inhabited by Somalis, Professor of Anthropology Donald L. Donham observed that Menelik's imperial administration had dramatically failed to adopt to local religion and politics, while facing significant resistance from the Somali anti-colonial Dervish movement. As the Ethiopian Empire began expanding into Somali territories at the start of the 1890s, Jigjiga came under intermittent military occupation until 1900. At the turn of the century, Abyssinian troops occupied Jigjiga and completed the construction of a fort nearby. Following these incursions, Amhara settlers began arriving in Jigjiga and its surroundings for the first time. That year the Somali Dervishes had their first major battle when they attacked the Ethiopian garrison at Jigjiga with the aim of returning looted livestock. The following year, a joint British-Ethiopian military expedition was launched to crush the Dervishes. In the early decades of the 20th century, Ethiopia exerted no actual influence over the Ogaden east of Jijiga, even after the treaty, and ruled in name only. When the boundary commission attempted to demarcate the treaty boundary in 1934, the native Somalis were unaware they were under Ethiopian rule.

Consequences and legacy

File:Menelik campaign map 1 3-es.svg, 1881–1890.
File:Menelik campaign map 2 3-es.svg, 1889–1896.
File:Menelik campaign map 3 3-es.svg, 1897–1904.
The incorporation of the southern highlands created unprecedented resources for the imperial core. Before the mid-19th century, Emperor Tewodros II had relied on tribute from the central regions for revenue, but by the start of the 20th century, these same regions provided very little and the majority of state revenue was drawn from the south. Exaction on northern peasants by the imperial state was lightened, and the burden was shifted to the newly ruled southerners. While wealth flowed north to the Amhara imperial core, driving regional development, the newly conquered lands saw little change except for the worsening pre-feudal economic conditions of the local population, exacerbated by land seizures and looting by imperial forces.

In contrast to imperial expansion into the central and northern highlands, where locals were protected by shared ethnicity and kinship, the people of the south lost most of their traditional lands to the Amhara rulers and were reduced to tenancy on their own lands. The vast southwards expansions carried out by Emperor Menelik exacerbated the divide between the largely Semetic populated north and the primarily Cushitic inhabited south, creating the conditions which encouraged significant future social and political transformations. Ethiopian historian Dr. Lapsio described the consequences of Menelik's conquest:

In southern Ethiopia, the word Amhara is often treated synonymously to the term Neftenya, the title given to the soldiers Menelik employed in this period to colonize the people of the south while living off the indigenous population and their lands. Based on convergent colonialist approaches, cooperation between Menelik and Belgian king Leopold II were attempted more than once. In the view of Ernest Gellner, Ethiopia had become "a prison-house of nations if ever there was one." The Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), which came to dominate Ethiopian politics at the end of the 20th century, castigated the formation of the centralized empire state under Menelik as, "the beginning of national oppression" in the groups manifesto. The roots of the current Ethiopian civil conflict can be traced back to Menelik's campaigns to expand the empire and the extreme violence associated with the it.

Slavery

Menelik's expansions into what is now southern Ethiopia set a pattern of razing entire districts, killing all male defenders and then enslaving the women and children. The southern expansions resulted in an immense increase in the number of slaves within the empire and raids fueled a national market for the trade. Menelik actively aided and abetted slavery in this period, despite his public proclamations to the contrary. Before the mid-1890's Menelik rarely opposed the slave trade of captives taken during the expansions. He personally gained half of the plunder and captives taken, while his soldiers and generals divided the rest according to their respective ranks. Eventually Menelik did sign an agreement with the British Empire to reign in and suppress the Ethiopian slave trade, which he backed with edicts - though they were not always enforced. Any restraint and order imposed after the agreements with the British collapsed as Menelik's health later deteriorated.

Characterization as a genocide

During the wars to expand the Ethiopian Empire, Menelik's army committed genocidal atrocities against peoples of the invaded territories, which included torture, mass killings and the imposition of large scale slavery.Mohammed Hassen, Conquest, Tyranny, and Ethnocide against the Oromo: A Historical Assessment of Human Rights Conditions in Ethiopia, c. 1880s–2002, Northeast African Studies Volume 9, Number 3, 2002 (New Series)Mekuria Bulcha, Genocidal violence in the making of nation and state in Ethiopia, African Sociological Review Some estimates of the number of people who were killed in the atrocities that were committed during the war and the famine which coincided with it go into the millions.Alemayehu Kumsa, Power and Powerlessness in Contemporary Ethiopia, Charles University in Prague p. 1122Eshete Gemeda
African Egalitarian Values and Indigenous Genres: A Comparative Approach to the Functional and Contextual Studies of Oromo National Literature in a Contemporary Perspective
p. 186 The Oromo territories experienced catastrophic demographic decline and exploitation due to the behavior of Menelik's colonial governors. According to Alexander Bulatovich, Menelik's Russian military aide, Menelik's armies "dreadfully annihilated more than half" of the Oromo (Galla) population down to 5 million people, which "took away from the Galla all possibility of thinking about any sort of uprising." Eshete Gemeda put the death toll even higher at 6 million.

See also

* Territorial evolution of Ethiopia
* Neftenya
* Scramble for Africa
* Colonisation of Africa

References

Bibliography

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Civil wars in the Ethiopian Empire

Military history of Shewa
Military campaigns involving Ethiopia
Settler colonialism in Africa