An Overview of Abyssinian Political History

This is a summary of a presentation Abrhaley Tesfagergs Habte delivered which discusses the evolution of Abyssinian political life with a focus on Ethiopia and Eritrea.

• Abrhaley first begins by explaining that the quest for peace and stability in the Horn of Africa requires a comprehensive understanding of its political and social history.
• Next he points out the futility and dangers of a compartmentalized historical approach for the region.
• He then traces the major political events that occurred in Abyssinia since the emergence of the first states in the region by highlighting the following sociopolitical stages:

1. The Era of Principalities: Roughly from the 8th century BC to the 1st century AD, an epoch characterized by the presence and interactions of numerous district-states in the Horn of Africa.
2. The Era of Aksum (or the Aksumite Era): Roughly from the 1st century to the 10th century AD, a period characterized by the growth, expansion and consolidation of the Aksumite state —processes which transformed it from a local power to an international player— and then by its decline and demise.
3. The Era of Agaw and the Lost History: Roughly from the 10th century to the end of the 13th century AD, a time span when an Agaw dynasty ruled Abyssinia although the transfer of power from Aksum to Agaw-land nor the nature and structure of the Agaw state is well-understood, owing to the pausity of historical records. However, this period is most notable for its architectural legacy.
4. The Era of the House of Amhara: Roughly from the end of the 13th century to the mid 1520s AD, an epoch qualified by the transformation of the ruling family of the Province of Amhara into the royal household of Abyssinia under Shum (Governor) Tesfaiyesus, and by its domination of Abyssinian politics. This period is also prominent for the absence of a fixed government seat and its consequences.
5. The Era of Desolation: From the mid 1520s to 1632 AD, a time span characterized by devastating internal religious wars (the Adel wars and the Jesuit wars) as well as by Ottoman Turkish invasions.
6. The Era of Gondar (or the Gondarine Period): From 1632 to 1769 AD, a period characterized by the termination of the internal religious wars, the adoption of an isolationist international policy, and the establishment of a fixed government seat at Gondar.
7. The Era of Princes: From 1769 to 1855 AD, a time span marked by the disintegration of Abyssinian central authority, the coronation of puppet kings, and the prevalence of autonomous provincial rulers that constantly clashed among themselves for personal gain and prestige.
8. The Era of Princely Kings and European Colonization: From 1855 to 1974 AD, a period whose defining features are the attempts and failures of different provincial rulers (of Quara, Enderta and Showa) to forge themselves into a unifying Abyssinian figure and thereby reestablish a strong Abyssinian central authority, as wel as European colonial interferences.
9. The Era of Tyrants: From 1974 to the present, this is the current political phase of Abyssinia, characterized by the supremacy of one-man dominated political parties (Mengistu Hailemariam and his Party, Isaias Afewerqi and his Party, Meles Zenawi and his Party, Abiy Ahmed and his Party), and by the conflagration of civil and interstate wars that are fueled by the ambitions of incumbent autocrats as well as by Marxist notions of liberation and ethnic emancipation.