Greetings,

Did you forget about part of Oromo history? What is the Ethiopian nation supposed to do with a people that is continually trying to take more land from them and kill their people.

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In the mid-sixteenth century, its political and military organization already weakened by the Muslim assault, the Christian kingdom began to be pressured on the south and southeast by movements of the Oromo (called Galla by the Amhara). These migrations also affected the Sidama, Muslim pastoralists in the lowlands, and Adal. At this time, the Oromo, settled in far southern Ethiopia, were an egalitarian pastoral people divided into a number of competing segments or groups but sharing a type of age-set system (see Glossary) of social organization called the gada system (see Glossary), which was ideally suited for warfare. Their predilection toward warfare, apparently combined with an expanding population of both people and cattle, led to a long-term predatory expansion at the expense of their neighbors after about 1550. Unlike the highland Christians or on occasion the lowland Muslims, the Oromo were not concerned with establishing an empire or imposing a religious system. In a series of massive but uncoordinated movements during the second half of the sixteenth century, they penetrated much of the southern and northern highlands as well as the lowlands to the east, affecting Christians and Muslims equally.

These migrations also profoundly affected the Oromo. Disunited in the extreme, they attacked and raided each other as readily as neighboring peoples in their quest for new land and pastures. As they moved farther from their homeland and encountered new physical and human environments, entire segments of the Oromo population adapted by changing their mode of economic life, their political and social organization, and their religious adherence. Many mixed with the Amhara (particularly in Shewa), became Christians, and eventually obtained a share in governing the kingdom. In some cases, royal family members came from the union of Amhara and Oromo elements. In other cases, Oromo, without losing their identity, became part of the nobility. But no matter how much they changed, Oromo groups generally retained their language and sense of local identity. So differentiated and dispersed had they become, however, that few foreign observers recognized the Oromo as a distinct people until the twentieth century.

In a more immediate sense, the Oromo migration resulted in a weakening of both Christian and Muslim power and drove a wedge between the two faiths along the eastern edge of the highlands. In the Christian kingdom, Oromo groups infiltrated large areas in the east and south, with large numbers settling in Shewa and adjacent parts of the central highlands. Others penetrated as far north as eastern Tigray. The effect of the Oromo migrations was to leave the Ethiopian state fragmented and much reduced in size, with an alien population in its midst. Thereafter, the Oromo played a major role in the internal dynamics of Ethiopia, both assimilating and being assimilated as they were slowly incorporated into the Christian kingdom. In the south, the Sidama fiercely resisted the Oromo, but, as in the central and northern highlands, they were compelled to yield at least some territory. In the east, the Oromo swept up to and even beyond Harer, dealing a devastating blow to what remained of Adal and contributing in a major way to its decline.

Library of Congress Country Studies

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From the south a new population invaded the country, they called themselves Oromo. The depopulation of the south because of slave raids, made a gradual growth possible of the Oromo to the north . So in the beginning of the 19th century five Oromo trade states appeared. Momentarily the Oromo is the biggest language group in Ethiopia. Nevertheless in historiography they have a marginal place because almost always the Amharic and Tigray ras (royals) dominated politics.

Above all Oromo Chiefs founded a dynasty that would later on be known as the Yajju dynasty. The Emperors of Gondar were merely marionettes. The power of these chiefs who gave themselves the title of Bitwaddad (the most privileged ) was challenged by the Tigray Ras (prince) Mikael, who assumed an increasing backstage importance. He was responsible for two assassinations of Emperors and replacing them with others of his choice. This era knows many wars and is known as Zamana Masafent, the era of the princes. In the middle of the 19th century Ethiopia was a hotchpotch of fighting fiefdoms of local dynasties, with a powerless Emperor

The unity of the country was not only threatened by those internal battles. Egypt strove to complete control of the Nile, up until her source, Lake Tana.

http://home.wanadoo.nl/spaansen/history1.htm
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Tewrodos wanted to conquer the Eritrean capital Masawa from Egypt, to restore the entrance to the sea which got lost 3 centuries earlier. He requested the English for support but the English interest was with the Turkish-Egyptian alliance because of the Sues canal yet to be opened. In his frustration he took several British prisoners.

The British formed an army led by Sir Robert Napier. Napier got support from the Oromo leaders and made a treaty of neutrality with the princes of Tigray, Lasta and Shoa and in 1869 they encircled Makdela, Tewrodos capital. The embittered Emperor realised he was changeless, ordered his troops to leave Makdela and committed suicide.

http://home.wanadoo.nl/spaansen/history2.htm

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By the mid-sixteenth century, the Oromo people of southwestern Ethiopia had begun a prolonged series of migrations during which they overwhelmed the Muslim states to the east and began settling in the central highlands. A profound consequence of the far-flung settlement of the Oromo was the fusion of their culture in some areas with that of the heretofore dominant Amhara and Tigray.

The period of trials that resulted from the Muslim invasions, the Oromo migrations, and the challenge of Roman Catholicism had drawn to a close by the middle of the seventeenth century. During the next two-and-one-half centuries, a reinvigorated Ethiopian state slowly reconsolidated its control over the northern highlands and eventually resumed expansion to the south, this time into lands occupied by the Oromo.

http://www.1upinfo.com/country-guide-study/ethiopia/ethiopia11.html
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Ark I
RasTafarI
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