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By 1500 Ethiopia was at its peak. It
was a rich, powerful, literate, and in many ways democratic
Christian culture. Haberland wrote: "Internally, the empire enjoyed
the utmost tranquility at that time."1
Francesco Alvares, writing between 1520-26, observed that, "Order
and security reigned."2
Ethiopian monks taught art,
science, and other subjects. Haberland wrote that the Kebra Nagast
was an Ethiopian Aeneid. It tells how the Queen of Sheba went to Jerusalem to learn
the wisdom of Solomon. They had a son, Menelik, who became the first
Ethiopian king and brought the Ark of the Covenant to Ethiopia.3
The Kebra Nagast portrays the Ethiopians as God's chosen people,
supplanting the Jews who did not convert to Christianity. "The
chosen of the Lord are the people of Ethiopia. For that is the
abode of God, the heavenly Zion…..I
have made a covenant with my chosen people; I have sworn to my servant
David: I will preserve thy seed for all eternity and maintain thy throne
for ever and ever."4
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Government
Ethiopia's
government in the middle ages was mostly democratic. The king was
above the democratic process, but below him were district elections
of the tellek saw (great man), who could be voted out of office or
demoted to a lower government position with an assembly of the
people in his district. 5
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History of Ethiopia
During Ethiopia's isolation period, beginning in the 11th century, Connah
wrote that the Ethiopians developed "some of the most remarkable
ecclesiastical architecture in the world."6
Between the 10th and 16th centuries churches carved from rocks
became commonplace--the 13th century
being the most remarkable. In the 12th century
for instance Ethiopia's
King Lalibela oversaw the construction of 10 chapels and churches,
dark-aisle and pillared, carved out of mountains near the capital of
Roha. "These skills," Connah records, "had a long history,
from the cutting of pre-Axuminte subterranean tombs to the quarrying of the
medieval rock-hewn churches and it seems reasonable to claim for them an
indigenous origin. It should be no surprise that the inhabitants of an
area as rocky as the Ethiopian Highlands should become expert in handling
stone."7
In the 15th century, when
the Portuguese traveled to Ethiopia
on their search for legendary Christian figure, Prestor John, who they
believed ruled over a kingdom in Africa, they were surprised to find a kingdom much like there own. "Ethiopia," Haberland writes,
"was closely linked with distant lands as far way as Europe, not only economically but also
culturally."8
Basil Davidson wrote, "It
was an Ethiopia very
like the kingdoms of medieval Europe,
a land ruled by proud and contumacious nobles bound in fealty to their
king, with a hierarchy of lesser nobles and vassals below them and, at
the bottom, land less peasants laboring for all."9
"When in the 1520's
Europeans reached the Ethiopian highlands," Davidson wrote, "they
found and described a civilization at about the same level as their own."10
The initial relationship
between Ethiopia and Portugal
was very good. The Portuguese even sent a military expedition to Ethiopia,
under the guidance of Vasco Da Gama's son, to help fight off the northern
Muslims. Unfortunately the Portuguese, loyal to the Church in Italy, and the Ethiopians, loyal to a much
different Coptic Church in Egypt, became annoyed with
the others stubbornness to change, and the ties between the two Christian
powers soon broke.
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Clash between the Ethiopians and
Egyptians
We still don't know why the Muslims and Christians began to fight after
centuries of friendly relations, but many believe it was the work of the
charismatic Muslim militant, Ahmad ign Ibrahim al-Ghazi. In 1529, because
of the war, the Ethiopians lost an entire army and many of their ruling
elite. "Churches and monasteries were ruthlessly plundered and
sacked and their treasures destroyed or given to the Islamic army…Many of
the treasures of Ethiopian literature and painting,
miniatures in books or murals on church walls, were
destroyed and such relics which by chance escaped destruction can
today give only a rough idea of the achievements of those creative and
productive centuries." In 1533 Ethiopia's
most holy place, Axum, was, "razed
to the ground."11
An Ethiopian chronicle
stated with pride and sorrow, "Until this time the (Christian)
country had never been laid waste or overrun by the enemy."12
In 1541 volunteer corps of
400 Portuguese went to the Ethiopian highlands to defend their Christian
Ethiopian brothers. Led by Vasco da Gama younger son, Cristovao, defeated
the Muslim army. The Portuguese were defeated in their third battle, and
Cristovao da Gama was taken prisoner and executed after he refused to convert
to Islam. By 1543 the Ethiopians won, and took back their lost territory.13
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Fall
by Ormomo
Ethiopia
suffered greatly from the war, and the Ormomo took advantage. "The
Oromo," Haberland writes, "were and are a people with a highly
developed, sophisticated culture admired by their neighbors."14
They penetrated central, eastern and western Ethiopia in what became a
mass migration. The regions the Ormomo colonized were thinly populated
from the wars, so they easily took control. "Between 1529 and 1632
the Ethiopian empire was struggling for survival….The Turks were
consolidating their power on the shores of the Red Sea, seizing all
Ethiopian ports and penetrating deep into the Highlands to Tigre; in the
central provinces of Bagemder and Samen a bitter civil war was being
waged against the Ethiopians of Jewish faith; and the Oromo had not only
overrun and destroyed the south-eastern tributary states and cut the
empire off from its western and south-western dependencies, but also
periodically invaded Bagemder and Gojjam and settled permanently in
originally Christian heartland such as Angot, Wallaka, Amhara and
Shoa."15
Haberland records that there
was, "intellectual and political stagnation between 1775 and
1855."16
The once great Ethiopian culture that had flourished for hundreds of
years was gone.
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1Davidson,
Lost Cities, 134
2Africa
from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century/ editor, B.A. Ogot. (London;
Heinemann Educational Books; Berkeley; University of California Press;
Paris: Unesco, 1992), 706
3Ibid
4Ibid,
705
5Ibid,
706
6Ibid,
707, 708
7Connah,
68
8Ibid,
86
9Africa
from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century/ editor, B.A. Ogot. (London;
Heinemann Educational Books; Berkeley; University of California Press;
Paris: Unesco, 1992), 709
10Davidson,
African kingdoms, 42
11Davidson,
Basil. "The Ancient World and Africa:
Whose Roots?" Race and Class. A Journal for Black and Third World Liberation. 29.2, 1987, 10
12Africa
from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century/ editor, B.A. Ogot. (London;
Heinemann Educational Books; Berkeley; University of California Press;
Paris: Unesco, 1992), 713
13Ibid,
713
14Ibid,
715
15Ibid,
717
16Ibid,
724
17Ibid,
723
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