Menilek’s reign witnessed the taking of a number of important steps to ameliorate the country’s difficult communications, as well as to reduce its isolation from the rest of the world. Bridge-Building on the Awash River, and the Tamchi The first of these innovations was the erection of a bridge over the Awash river, in 1886, …
Emperor Menilek’s Conservative Courtiers Though Menilek was reputedly a firm friend of progress, most of his courtiers are said to have been old-fashioned in attitude. Thus a British scientist, J. I. Craig, reporting on a visit to Ethiopia, said of the Emperor, “He is highly intelligent, and … ready enough to avail himself of the …
Ethiopia’s first great innovating monarch was, it is generally agreed, Emperor Tewodros, or Theodore II (1855-1868). The British writer Clements Markham referred to him as no less than the “most remarkable man” of nineteenth century Africa. Likening him to Peter the Great of Russia, he added: “They were both born kings of men, both endowed …
The conservative character of traditional Ethiopian life, which we are considering in these articles, found expression in the opposition of the Ethiopian Church to the use of tobacco and coffee. “Enemies of the Church” Tobacco and coffee might have been expected to have spread widely in the Christian areas of the country, as in the …
We saw last week that Ethiopia’s traditional self-sufficiency at first isolated it from the impact of the Industrial Revolution, which took place in Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The Ethiopian Import Picture: In the North Ethiopian imports by the early nineteenth were, however, by no means negligible. A fair picture of …
Social mobility in medieval Ethiopia, as we saw last week, was rigidly circumscribed by tradition. Christianity, which was conceived of as a religion with a place for all men, perhaps prevented the emergence of anything approaching the caste system of Hindu India, and even preached the desirability of slave-owners emancipating their slaves, if converted, on …
We saw last week that Ethiopian society, confronted with the advent of the Jesuits, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, displayed little interest in copying their ways, as well as a strong hostility towards accepting their religion. Missionaries Also Uninterested It should at the same time be emphasised that the missionaries were also …
Maintenance of Independence Ethiopia’s mountainous and largely inaccessible terrain tended from early times to isolate the country, and contributed much towards the preservation of its independence in the era of the Scramble for Africa. One of the most interesting aspects of Ethiopian history, and one which is most often commented upon, is the fact that …
Let us turn this week to the history of foreign scholarship in Ethiopia, and consider today, and next Friday, the case of Italy. Historically linked Ethiopia and Italy were historically linked by both geography and religion. Italy, from the point of view of Ethiopian Christians, was the nearest major European Christian country, and as such, …
We saw last week that the Duke of Aosta, who replaced Graziani as Viceroy, for tactical reasons adopted a somewhat more “liberal” approach than his predecessor. The new policy was desirable, and almost essential, for the Italian leadership, which knew it would soon be at war with the British and French, and could not afford …