Qualla: Ethiopian Empire

Ethiopian Empire: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown but died over 70 years ago, Public domain. When Italian troops filed into the valley at Adwa on March 1, 1896, they outnumbered themselves. Scattered across miles of rugged terrain, poorly mapped, underestimating their enemy, they walked into one of the greatest defeats a European army ever suffered in Africa. Emperor Menelik II had 80,000 soldiers waiting. By nightfall, Italy had lost 6,889 men, its columns were broken, and Ethiopia had done what no other African kingdom managed: it had kept its independence through the entire colonial era. The empire behind that victory was already six centuries old. It would last another seventy-eight years.

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Image: Unknown but died over 70 years ago | Public domain

Ethiopian Empire: A Solomonic Dynasty Takes Root

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit various, Public domain. In 1270, an Amhara nobleman named Yekuno Amlak defeated the last Zagwe king and took the throne. He claimed descent - through the Aksumite royal line - from the biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The Kebra Nagast, compiled in the 14th century, told the story: the Queen...

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Image: various | Public domain

Ethiopian Empire: Ahmad Gragn and the Near-Catastrophe

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown, but died over 70 years ago, Public domain. The worst hour came in the 16th century. Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi - called Ahmad Gragn, 'Ahmad the Left-Handed' - rose to power in the Adal Sultanate and, stockpiling firearms and cannons imported from the Ottoman Empire, invaded Ethiopia in 1529. By the mid-1530s, most of the ...

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Image: Unknown, but died over 70 years ago | Public domain

Ethiopian Empire: Gondar, the City of Emperors

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1636, Emperor Fasilides broke an old Ethiopian tradition. Rather than move his court perpetually through the provinces, he built a permanent capital at Gondar, in the fertile country north of Lake Tana. The Royal Enclosure, Fasil Ghebbi, rose in brown basalt with wine-colored ...

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Image: Bernard Gagnon | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ethiopian Empire: Tewodros, Yohannes, Menelik

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Walter Mittelholzer, Public domain. The 18th century ended badly. After the death of Emperor Iyasu II in 1755, power fragmented. Regional warlords - Ras this, Ras that - fought for control while emperors became puppets. Ethiopians called this period the Zemene Mesafint, the Era of the Princes. It ended only when a ...

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Image: Walter Mittelholzer | Public domain

Ethiopian Empire: Haile Selassie and the End

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Koch for Anefo, CC BY-SA 3.0 nl. Ras Tafari Makonnen, crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I in November 1930, inherited a feudal empire and tried to modernize it without unmaking it. He abolished slavery in 1942. He made Ethiopia a charter member of the United Nations. He presided over the formation of the Organisati...

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Image: Eric Koch for Anefo | CC BY-SA 3.0 nl