the caravan routes. These traders were able to set up strong relations with the Oromo nobility based on mutual commercial benefits. Many of these traders also gradually took over responsibility for the teaching of the children of Oromo nobility and were therefore, in part, responsible for the preparation of future generations of Oromo leaders, at least in the Gibe states of Limmu-Ennarya and Gomma. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Islam had taken hold among the elite throughout all the Gibe states with the exception of Gomma. The kings, in turn, believed they had the responsibility of spreading Islam among their subjects and encouraged Muslim preachers and teachers to establish Muslim schools.24
Hassen indicates that consistent with his “series of gradations,” a duality persisted between Islam and the traditional religion of the Oromo during this spread and growth of Islam throughout the Gibe states. Both change and acceptance were largely syncretic, particularly among the grassroots Oromo population. According to Hassen: “In the end Islam replaced the old religion mainly because it had the full support of the state, while the old religion lacked a literate class, organized preachers, and the ideological strength of Islam. The Oromo believed in Waaqa (sky god), the creator of the universe. To pass from believing in Waaqa to accepting Allah as the creator of the universe was not a formidable transition.”25
Old traditions and rituals were often modified syncretically to embrace the new Islam.
Myths of Origin
There is a widely held view among many historians that the Oromo were latecomers to the highland plateau territory of Ethiopia, entering and settling there only during the sixteenth century. However, Oromo historian Mohammed Hassen challenges this view, claiming that the Oromo, as the largest group of Cushitic-speaking peoples who are known to have populated the Ethiopian region for millennia, are one of the indigenous groups of Ethiopia.26 In support of this claim, he alludes to the assertion by British army officer, colonial administrator, and journalist Sir Darrell Bates that “the Galla were a very ancient race, the indigenous stock, perhaps, on which most other peoples in this part of eastern Africa had been grafted.”27
Bates claims that the Oromo had earlier been driven out of the same lands that were most in contention during the first part of the sixteenth century by the Abyssinian Christians and the followers of Islam. According to Bates, the Oromo, who were then in the lands to the south and west of these territories whence they had been driven, observed the tussles between the two factions with interest, “waiting in the wings for opportunities to exact revenge and to recover lands which had been taken from them.” Regrettably, Bates fails to source these statements, which Hassen later picked up and used as evidence in support of his argument.28 Hassen points to evidence that the Oromo were largely agropastoralists and originally practiced mixed farming.29
In the 1880s, when the Oromo children’s narratives begin, the Oromo were entrenched in the territories to the south and southwest of Abyssinia and Menelik’s kingdom of Shewa. These were the final years of the reign of Abyssinia’s “King of Kings,” Emperor Yohannes IV, who claimed descent from King Solomon through two female lines and had come to power in 1872. By the mid-1880s, Sahle Maryam, king of Shewa (who could claim uninterrupted direct male descent from King Solomon and the queen of Sheba), was determined to place himself first in line to replace Yohannes when the time came.30 This was the era of ascendancy for the man who would become Emperor Menelik II.
In his active pursuit of the imperial crown, Menelik knew that he needed to augment his material wealth and firepower. In that era, firearms had become “a precondition for satisfying wider political ambitions.”31 He also needed to expand his territorial domain, which he had achieved through an ongoing program of incursions, particularly to the south and southwest.
Menelik steadily augmented the territorial dominion and power of his realm, principally by expanding into the Oromo lands to the south and west through successive battles, including that fought at Embabo near the Abbay-Gibe watershed. He was also careful to extend his Shewan hegemony northward by incorporating the Wollo (or Wello) region to the northeast.
To cement his ascendancy, he recognized above all the strategic importance of securing the old trade routes to the southeast, thus opening up access to the sea and foreign trading opportunities. This would mean taking the ancient walled city of Harar (see fig. 1.3). The city had fallen temporarily under Egyptian control in 1875 when, by establishing this foothold, they hoped to take control of the whole of Ethiopia. This proved to be an abortive exploit, and they eventually abandoned Harar in 1885. Seizing the moment, Menelik attacked and conquered Harar at the battle of Chelenko in January 1887, thus adding considerable heft to his growing imperial ambitions.32 When Emperor Yohannes died from a wound sustained in battle against the Sudanese Mahdists in March 1889, there was little doubt that Menelik would be his successor.33
FIGURE 1.3. Ancient walled city of Harar (source: Richard F. Burton, First Footsteps in East Africa; or, An Exploration of Harar [London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1856], frontispiece).
Menelik’s ambitions were not limited to his successful territorial and hegemonic advantages. He was equally bent on raiding these—and other territories he had no intention of colonizing—for whatever spoils and levies they might yield. The spoils included livestock and slaves. Menelik, as king of Shewa, had long benefited substantially from the slave trade. Despite his public lip service to the abolition of the slave trade, he actively promoted its expansion during these latter decades of the nineteenth century. Simply put, there was too much potential for profit in the trade in slaves and he was, arguably, the trade’s greatest beneficiary in Ethiopia.34 Harold Marcus maintains that Menelik was Ethiopia’s “greatest slave entrepreneur.”35 He demanded that taxes be levied on slaves passing through Shewa, as well as a tax of one Maria Theresa (MT) dollar (or thaler) on every slave sold within his kingdom. Prisoners captured in the course of his predatory battles, or zamacha, were sold in slave markets, and he built up his own court’s slave allocation through tributes paid in slaves.36
With the monies accrued from the profits of the slave trade, Menelik was able to satisfy not only his tactical need but also his personal passion for weapons. According to Marcus, Giovanni Chiarini—an Italian explorer who spent two years in the kingdom of Shewa (1876 to 1878)—described Menelik as “fatalistic and a good soldier, [who] loves weapons above all else.”37 To acquire his weaponry, he courted the European powers, notably the French, with whom he had established his first European contact and of whom he is reported to have said, “The French are my friends; it is upon them that I shall base the hope of my reign. I give you all my confidence and my friendship; my country is yours, and you are amidst a people who also love you.”38 Among his principal French gunrunners was, rather surprisingly, the celebrated French poet Arthur Rimbaud.39
The Oromo largely resisted Menelik’s predatory attacks until 1886. Thereafter, despite their larger numbers, the insufficiency of their firepower was no match for Menelik’s superior and growing ordnance strength. Enslaving the Oromo offered him an open opportunity to continue to augment his mounting military superiority. According to the historian Jon R. Edwards, by the late nineteenth century, slaves had become one of the most significant Ethiopian export commodities, and “in addition to the fillip to the trade generated by his disruptive wars of expansion, [Menelik]’s generals brought thousands of slaves home to Shewa after their expeditions.”40
Menelik’s efforts bore fruit. When the wounded Emperor Yohannes died on 10 March 1889, Menelik finally claimed the imperial throne thanks to his determination, his ruthless political ambitions, and his augmented purse and military power. He was crowned Emperor Menelik II in the Entotto Maryam Church
