There were two main centres of monarchical power in Wallaga. A leader called Bakare established the state of Leqa Naqamte, which grew even more powerful under his successors Moroda and Kumsa Moroda, later known as Gabra-Egziabher, ‘slave of God’, after his conversion to Christianity, following the incorporation of his principality in the Ethiopian empire by Menilek II in 1882. In southwestern Wallaga, a ruler named Jote Tullu emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century, combining ruthless military power with successful exploitation of trans-frontier trade.
Jote Tullu’s kingdom was in constant interaction, both hostile and peaceful, with the sheikhdoms that had emerged to the north, particularly with that of Aqoldi, more commonly known as Asosa. Like the other two sheikhdoms, Khomosha and Bela Shangul (or Beni Shangul), Aqoldi grew out of the imposition of an Arabic-speaking mercantile aristocracy of Sudanese origin on the indigenous inhabitants, the Barta. To be more precise, this new ruling class was superimposed over an earlier aristocracy of Funj origin, or at least association with the Funj, from the kingdom of Sennar in Sudan. A similar process of superimposition was duplicated on the other side of the Abbay or Blue Nile, and led to the rise of the sheikhdom of Gubba, on the Gumuz-inhabited western fringes of Gojjam. By virtue of their Sudanese origin, all these sheikhdoms were Muslim and fostered the propagation of Islam in the region.
The emirate of Harar, in the eastern part of the country, represented another important centre of Islamic power and influence. Battered by the Oromo, this successor state to the medieval kingdom of Adal, the homeland of Ahmad Gragn, had dwindled to a fraction of its medieval power and glory. Surrounded by the Qottu Oromo, the city state led a rather precarious existence, symbolized by the wall that has remained its distinctive feature to this day. Over a period of time, however, the Harari and Oromo peoples established a modus vivendi marked by trade, some intermarriage and the Islamization of the Oromo by Harari missionaries. But the growing weakness of the Harar emirate tended to invite foreign intervention. In 1875, an Egyptian force led by Muhammad Rauf Pasha occupied the city, in a bloody imposition of authority which involved the murder of the emir and the massacre of the Oromo representatives gathered in response to the summons by the invader. Egyptian rule lasted a decade.
1.1 The city of Harar as it appeared in the first decade of the twentieth century
Elsewhere in southern Ethiopia, a much lower level of sociopolitical organization prevailed. In the south-west, the Nilo-Saharan Anuak, led by their village headmen (kuaari), had an economy which combined agriculture with hunting and gathering. Their neighbours, the Nuer, were pastoralists who developed a rather complex spiritual culture around their cattle. Both were linked with the Oromo of the highlands by trade. The southern and south-eastern peripheries were inhabited by the Borana and Somali clans respectively, all pastoralists recognizing no boundaries. The pastoralist outer ring was continued by the Afar in the Danakil desert; their proverbial ferocity, coupled with their inhospitable terrain, safeguarded their independence for a long time. Independence did not rule out interaction, however, for the town of Bati, for instance, developed as a commercial rendezvous for highlander and lowlander. Neighbouring the Afar on the north, the Saho lived in somewhat similar circumstances, although they had a much narrower margin of operation because of the shorter distance 20 between the coast and the highlands.
In the present-day region of Gamo Gofa in the south-west, the Cushitic Konso developed a distinct culture characterized by terraced farming, wooden carvings and stone enclosures, while the two kingdoms that eventually gave their names to the administrative region (Gamo and Gofa) were further examples of the advanced sociopolitical organization prevalent among the Omotic peoples.
With the exception of the lowlands, the distinguishing feature of the southern peoples of Ethiopia was the predominance of the ensat culture (in contrast to the cereal culture of the north). To this culture also belonged the Gurage (fragmented into a number of tribes and hence easy victims of the slavers of the nineteenth century), the Hadiya and the Kambata. Political fragmentation was the rule among the Shawan Oromo as well. This state of affairs facilitated the expansion of the kingdom of Shawa, a process which gained impetus in the reign of Negus Sahla-Sellase (r. 1813-1847) and reached its climax under Emperor Menilek II. The Arsi to the south had an economy combining agriculture and pastoralism, and a more pronounced sense of regional identity fostered by the leadership of their hereditary abba dula.
The link: long-distance trade
The two spheres of the Ethiopian polity, which for the sake of convenience have been dichotomized into northern and southern, did not exist in mutual isolation. The unity of interest that long-distance trade created between them tempered the political and cultural heterogeneity depicted above. The network of trade routes that united north and south was one of the main bases of the process of unification that took place in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Although the trade routes which linked south-western Ethiopia to the coast had medieval antecedents, it was in the nineteenth century that they attained particular prominence. This was partly because of the revival of external trade in the Red Sea region; partly, too, their prominence reflects the better documentation we have for this period, because of a number of European travellers who penetrated the interior. Ethiopian long-distance trade in the nineteenth century had two major routes. Of these, the more important at the outset was the link between south-western Ethiopia and the north. Beginning from Bonga in Kafa, this route linked such important commercial centres as Jiren in Jimma, Saqa in Limmu-Ennarya, Assandabo in Horro-Gudru, Basso in Gojjam and Darita in Bagemder with the imperial capital, Gondar. From there, it bifurcated, one branch going to Matamma on the Ethio-Sudanese frontier, and another, via Adwa, to Massawa on the Red Sea coast.
The second major route ran from west to east. While initially of secondary importance, its fortunes rose with those of Shawa in Ethiopian politics. By the end of the nineteenth century it had become the most important artery of commerce in the Ethiopian region. From Jiren and Saqa in the south-west, this route passed through such commercial landmarks as Soddo and Rogge (near Yarar mountain, visible to the east of present-day Addis Ababa), to Alyu Amba, the commercial capital of Shawa, near Ankobar, then Shawa’s political capital. Thence, the route continued to Harar, political and commercial centre of the east, and on to the coastal Somali towns of Zeila and Berbera.
The directions of trade routes were also indicative of the origins and destinations of the items of trade. If we were to single out two commodities which dominated the long-distance trade of the nineteenth century, they would be salt and slaves. The salt, originating in the Taltal plains of Tegre, was carried to the south-west, its value increasing in direct proportion to its distance from the source. Not only was it used as a consumption item, but, in its bar form (amole), it also served as currency. Goods of foreign origin, such as glass, beads, cloth and ironware, also penetrated from the coast to the south-west.
In the opposite direction, slaves of south-western origin found their way to the north-west and east. A few were destined for internal use, but the majority were exported to Sudan and the Arabian peninsula. The modes of acquiring slaves varied: some were captives of war, others were victims of slave-raids, still others had been sold into slavery by parents rendered destitute by famine or financial stress. The prosperous long-distance trade in slaves created such towns as Yajube, near Basso in Gojjam, and Abdul Rassul, near Alyu Amba in Shawa, which specialized in the sale of slaves, often by auction. Other items which originated in the south-west and were mostly exported were ivory, gold and musk. In the second half of the nineteenth century, coffee, the commodity that was to be the main product of the south-west in the twentieth century, came to the forefront.
Long-distance trade was conducted through the agency of