Ethiopians

While the recorded history of Ethiopia goes back several millennia, the region’s early modern history opens with a tumultuous conflict known to posterity as the Ethiopian-Adal War (1529-1543). The ruling Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia struggled initially against the Adal forces of the intrepid Ahmad Gragn, whose deft use of Ottoman artillery gained him the upper hand in several battles. The Adal occupation lasted over a decade, but the Solomonic dynasty, led by the tenacious Queen Sabla Wengel and the formerly exiled Emperor Gelawdewos, eventually threw off the foreign yoke and defeated Gragn. Instrumental in this victory were the tattered remnants of a Portuguese expeditionary force led by Cristovao da Gama, who perished in the process. Gelawdewos then sought to turn the tables and invade Adal, but suffered the same fate as the overconfident Gragn and was slain in turn in 1559. Next to attempt to subjugate the resurgent Ethiopian state was the Ottoman Empire, which seized several key locations on the coast but was unable to push further inland. Further threats ensued from a new power: the Harar Sultanate, which had assumed control of the lands ruled by the crumbling Adal Sultanate. Although these were parried successfully, constant conflict and climatic conditions culminated in unstable conditions that caused a series of mass migrations of East African people-groups into the Ethiopian sphere of influence. Most notable among these were the Oromo, hardy pastoralists and fierce warriors who would attain immense power within the fragmenting Ethiopian state and retain it for centuries. By the late 17th century, Ethiopia had devolved into a patchwork of loosely knit localist entities that could only barely be said to answer to the imperial mantle. This all changed during the reign of Iyasu the Great (r. 1682-1706), who inaugurated a long programme of reforms across various spheres from political centralization to infrastructure, cultural growth, and foreign diplomacy. His untimely death, however, sent the recovering state into a tailspin. The resulting power vacuum was filled by a series of competing clans and princes, who by five decades later had reduced a once-powerful state into little more than an anarchical patchwork of feudal demesnes where ruthless warlords ruled by force. This so-called Era of the Princes lasted nearly a century. In 1855, Kassa Hailu, a shifta (brigand) turned magnate, triumphed over his rival warlords and was crowned Emperor Tewodros II. Desperate to modernize his fledgling nation, Tewodros resorted to the shocking decision to kidnap European officials and missionaries and barter them for help from European powers in industrializing Ethiopia. This scheme backfired violently, as the British responded with a full-scale invasion, annihilated Tewodros’ armies with ease, and rescued the hostages, leaving Ethiopia once more in a volatile situation. Despite this setback, the Ethiopian state recovered quickly. After the so-called Scramble for Africa commenced during the following decades, Ethiopia was notable as one of the few regions on the African continent that eluded the talons of European imperial colonialism.

From the game's History encyclopedia.