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| "Ethiopia Location" |
Ethiopia’s geographic location and features have given the country a distinct historical advantage. Being situated on the edge of the Great Rift Valley, much of Ethiopia is higher above sea level than the rest of the African continent. Most of the continent’s land stands at an elevation of 500-1000 meters. Of the relatively small amount of continental land above 2,000 meters, Ethiopia possesses half. Of the scarce amount of land over 3,000 meters, Ethiopia is home to over three-fourths. This exceptionally high elevation is the cause for excessive rainfall in the Ethiopian highlands - rainfall which is exceptional for a country so close to the Red Sea. These unique circumstances - adequate rainfall and location on the Red Sea - gave rise to the mighty kingdom of Aksum in the first century. Reader writes, “the unique environmental circumstances of northern Ethiopia combined with the trading opportunities of the Red Sea to fuel the rise of sub-Saharan Africa’s first indigenous state.”
The Kingdom of Aksum stood, from the first century to the tenth century, over what is now modern day Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Yemen. One ancient historian referred to Aksum as one of the four major powers of the world - alongside Rome, Persia, and China.
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| “Ethiopian Highlands” |
In the fourth century, two young Roman citizens (Frumentius and Aedesius) became providentially involved, by way of shipwreck and capture, in the court of the Aksumite King Ezana. They brought the message of the Christian gospel to the king and his court. The young King Ezana converted to Christianity and made Christianity the official religion of his kingdom. After the king’s conversion, with the help of Frumentius and Christian Roman merchants, the gospel spread freely and widely throughout the country, reaching every man, woman, and child. Over time, Christianity became essential to the national identity of Ethiopia. According to Professor Sergew Habele Selassie, “Christianity does not constitute a purely religious phenomenon on the country, but plays an integral role in all aspects of national life. The Church is not only a religious institution, but has for many centuries been the repository of the cultural, political and social life of the people."
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| “Ethiopian Cross” |
(Ethiopian Orthodox Church Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JHemzHe2CI).
Ethiopia’s association with the God of the Bible did not begin in the fourth century, however. Sometime around the tenth century BC, the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba traveled to Jerusalem to see the famed wisdom and wealth of King Solomon. She left Solomon with gold and spices and precious stones, and Solomon in turn “gave to the Queen of Sheba all that she desired,”
and he taught her about the God of Israel. According to Ethiopian tradition, King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba had a son, Menelik I. Menelik was confirmed by Solomon to the be king of Ethiopia. Before returning to Ethiopia, however, Menelik insisted that he be granted to take the Ark of the Covenant, which God had instructed his forefather Moses to build. When he was not given such permission, he stole the Ark and brought it to Ethiopia where many, including most Ethiopians, believe “it still remains.” According to Mamman Musa Adamu, this legend “is clearly one of the most accepted, believed, pervasive and resonant among all the legends of origin in Africa, today. The legend is still widely believed by the majority of Ethiopians and is reflected in their day to day lives.”
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| “Solomon and the Queen of Sheba” |
During the first years of the Christian church, having begun in and around Jerusalem, Philip the evangelist found an Ethiopian journeying home from Jerusalem, reading the prophet Isaiah. When Philip found him, he explained the words of Isaiah to him and “told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35). According to Ethiopian tradition, this Ethiopian brought the gospel to his homeland. Throughout the rest of the first three centuries, merchants from the Roman Empire brought the gospel with them to Ethiopia. Finally, in the fourth century, King Ezana proclaimed Christianity to be the official religion of the Aksumite kingdom.
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| “Philip with the Ethiopian” |
In the thirteenth century, the Solomonic dynasty ascended to power. The Solomonic dynasty reigned, with few interruptions, until 1974. Each of the Solomonic kings claimed descent from Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, and Menelik I. One notable Solomonic ruler was Menelik II (1889-1913). The last of the Solomonic rulers was Emperor Haile Selassie (1930-1974).
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| “Haile Selassie” |
Ethiopia has had a long history of relations with the rest of the world. The Queen of Sheba, having traveled to Jerusalem in the tenth century, bore King Solomon a son and returned home with a knowledge of the God of Israel. The Christian gospel was proclaimed to Ethiopians by foreigners for centuries until the King himself became converted. Throughout the Middle Ages, the legend of a Christian priest-king in a distant land stirred the imagination of Europeans. “Prester John”, as he was called, was the “quintessential representative of a distant and largely unknown Christian might.”
The identity of the legendary Prester John was “conferred upon the kings of Ethiopia when medieval Europe learned of the Christian kingdom that lay beyond the realm of Islam.” In 1487, King John of Portugal sent two Arabic speaking merchants to discover the land of Prester John and obtain the Christian king’s aid in a crusade against Islam.
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| “Presbiteri Iohannis, sive, Abissinorum Imperii descriptio” |
In 1407, an Italian visited Ethiopia. He was the first European to step foot on Ethiopian soil. Some five hundred years later, Italians would seek to claim Ethiopian soil for themselves. In the age of European colonization, beginning in the late nineteenth century, Italy, seeking to stake their own claim on Africa, targeted Ethiopia. Ethiopia, under Menelik II, successfully resisted colonization by Italy, defeating the Italians at the Battle of Adwa in 1896. Ethiopia was the only major African country to retain its sovereignty against European colonizers, and the struggle against Italy was the “only one in this era in which the African country in question maintained its independence.” “In an age of relentless European expansion, Ethiopia had successfully defended its independence; in doing so, it cast doubt upon an unshakable certainty of the age—that sooner or later all Africans would fall under the rule of Europeans.” On the eve of the second world war, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War resulted in the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia. The Italians were driven out, and Ethiopia’s sovereignty was recognized in 1944.
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| “Africa Imperialism Map” |
Although the Ethiopians resisted the Italian colonizers, they did not altogether escape the effects of colonization. Some effects were positive. For instance, during its brief occupation, “Italy contributed in conducting scientific crop research, introduced better agricultural methods, attempted to assess Ethiopia's food and farming potentialities, acquainted the Ethiopian people with mechanized agriculture and catapulted Ethiopia into the machine age.” However, Italian influence also planted the seeds for a border war. King Menelik II ceded some of Ethiopia’s northern territories to the Italians in exchange for other goods. This land became the Italian colony of Eritrea and is today the modern state of Eritrea. After the Ethiopia victory at the battle of Adwa, the Treaty of Addis Ababa confirmed Ethiopia’s independence and strictly delineated its northern border with Eritrea. In 1998, a border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea led to a two year war. According to Philip White, the Eritrean-Ethiopian war “ended only after a full-scale invasion of Eritrea, the loss of some 45-50,000 lives, the displacement of 300,000 people, mass explosions, massive economic, infrastructural and development costs, the stoking up of conflicts across the region, a legacy of mistrust and loss of trade between the two states and lost livelihood in border areas, and serious political repercussions for the two leaderships which are still being played out.”
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| “Eritrean–Ethiopian War Map” |
Foreigners have also come to Ethiopia as missionaries. The first Protestant missionary to Ethiopia was a German Lutheran - Peter Heyling. Heyling arrived in Ethiopia in 1634. “Heyling’s primary interest was to work with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church with the aim of ‘revitalizing’ the institution so that it would focus on its scriptural origins, reform, and be endowed with a heightened sense of evangelization in accord with the doctrine of salvation.” Missionary work in Ethiopia reached its peak during the reign of Haile Selassie in the 20th century. From 1974 to 1991, mission work subsided, due to the Marxist government which controlled Ethiopia (known as “the Derg”). In 1991, that government was overthrown, and missionaries returned to Ethiopia, where they continue to labor today. Today, Ethiopia is a republic, and is officially called the “Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.”
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| “Ethiopian Flag” |
(Ethiopian National Anthem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02t8_Ztf8e0)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Scholarly Sources:
Adamu, Mamman Musa, “The Legend of Queen Sheba, the Solomonic Dynasty and Ethiopian History: An Analysis.” African Research Review. Vol. 3 (1), 2009, 468-482.
Belcher, Stephen Paterson. African Myths Of Origin. London: Penguin, 2005.
Eshete, Tibebe. The Evangelical Movement In Ethiopia. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009.
Jonas, Raymond Anthony. The Battle Of Adwa. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011.
Quirin, James. "Is the Successful Military Resistance to European Colonialism in Late Nineteenth-Century Ethiopia Still Significant Today?" The Journal of African History 48, no. 2 (2007): 344-45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4501061.
Reader, John. Africa: A Biography of the Continent. New York: First Vintage Books, 1999.
Salvadore, Matteo. "The Ethiopian age of exploration: Prester John's discovery of Europe, 1306-1458." Journal of World History 21, no. 4 (2010): 593. Academic OneFile (accessed September 27, 2016). http://p2048-ezproxy.liberty.edu.ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=vic_liberty&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA246449862&sid=summon&asid=4e916c807c461d3ddc0ba69f56366686.
Sbacchi, Alberto. “Italian Colonization in Ethiopia: Plans and Projects, 1936-1940.” Africa: Rivista Trimestrale Di Studi E Documentazione Dell’Istituto Italiano per L’Africa E L’Oriente 32, no. 4 (1977): 503-16. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40760485.
Sellassie, Sergew Hable, and Tadesse Tamerat. “The Church of Ethiopia: A Panorama of History and Spiritual Life.” Addis Ababa: Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, 1970. http://www.ethiopianorthodox.org/english/ethiopian/prechristian.html
White, Philip. “The Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Arbitration.” Review of African Political Economy 29, no. 92 (2002): 345-56. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4006821.
Multi Media Elements:
“Africa Imperialism Map”, (accessed 19 October. 2016. http://jmccrackenworld.com/Africa_ImperialismMap.jpg)
“Eritrean–Ethiopian War Map”, Horn of Africa (accessed 19 October. 2016. http://hornofafrica.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Eritrean%E2%80%93Ethiopian_War_Map_1998-620.jpg)
“Ethiopia Location”, Nouah’s Ark, (accessed 19 October. 2016. http://www.nouahsark.com/en/infocenter/worldwide/africa/ethiopia/ethiopia_location.php)
“Ethiopian Cross” (accessed 19 October. 2016. http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mek1thycJG1rxfsyuo1_400.jpg)
“Ethiopian Flag”, World Pics (accessed 19 October. 2016. http://worldpics.com.au/Ethiopia/flags/slides/1996ethiopia.gif)
“Ethiopian Highlands” (accessed 19 October. 2016. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPAy-zy6oOFXRVePvzfG5fvniOAsHtKPgdk3BsUvS9ZFfD-8IFXH2YwMCRZK4B79hUF6dJxGyISuTGBAoWOuLh5gc7BN-7wj4VurrUARyoj_Wy8QdPuIU9z5KkUFL_54DymFubF_1qMXho/s1600/ethiopia+Simien+Mountain+ethiopian+highlands+19.jpg).
“Haile Selassie”, Wikipedia (accessed 19 October. 2016. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Haile_Selassie_(1969).jpg
“Philip with the Ethiopian”, Kumulani Chapel, (accessed 19 October. 2016. http://kumulanichapel.org/wordpress1/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/philip-and-ethiopian.jpg)
“Presbiteri Iohannis, sive, Abissinorum Imperii descriptio”, Princeton (accessed 20 October. 2016. http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/africa/maps-central/1603%20ortelius.jpg).
“Solomon and the Queen of Sheba”, Wikipedia, (accessed 19 October. 2016. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Piero_della_Francesca-_Legend_of_the_True_Cross_-_the_Queen_of_Sheba_Meeting_with_Solomon%3B_detail.JPG)
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